But at the end of the day, it may not have had the desired effect as the hosts were reduced to 200/7.WASIM Jaffer looked emotionless, there was no urgency in his batting. As if all he wanted to do was to dead-bat the whole day and slowly pull his team to a decent position. He even allowed medium-pacer Prerak Mankad bowl 40 balls at him for just five runs.
It was an approach followed by the whole Vidarbha team. But at the end of the day, it may not have had the desired effect as the hosts were reduced to 200/7.
The runs were drying up. The pressure was building. But the tuk-tuk continued. Young left-arm pacer Chetan Sakariya bowled more than a dozen balls at Jaffer; again not many runs but there was a loud shout for lbw when Jaffer was on 3, but it was turned down as the umpire felt there might have been an inside edge. Replays didn’t reveal any wood but that was that. Jaffer retreated further into his shell. The situation perhaps demanded that kind of discipline. It was the Ranji final and Vidarbha had lost two early wickets, including that of captain Faiz Fazal to a lazy run-out. Jaffer realised his wicket was the biggest and went on the defensive.
It was then that Jaydev Unadkat went round the stumps. Gone are the days when left-arm seamers were reluctant to do that. Unadkat veers to the other extreme. He switches angles at will, often in the same over. He knows that he can trouble any right-hander by taking the ball away from him from round the stumps – the illusion of the ball coming in before it shapes away does suck in many a batsman.
But this is Jaffer we are talking about. Surely, he would know the plan. Especially when there has been a precedence this season itself, in the league game between the two teams. Unadkat had gone round the stumps to take him out. So everyone watched eagerly.
He had a decent first spell (6-2-12-1) that included the wicket of opener Sanjay Ramaswamy, who had reached out to a wide ball only to edge it to Arpit Vasavada at first slip. Now, in his second spell, Unadkat would run into an extra-cautious Jaffer for the first time. It was the slowest start from Jaffer this season, though he did hit a nonchalant six over long-off against left-arm spinner Dharmendrasinh Jadeja. Just 23 runs had come off 62 balls when he ran into Unadkat.
It took Unadkat just three deliveries. The third landed on a length and shaped away from Jaffer, whose feet stayed rooted but the hands pushed at the ball, away from the body. Edged and gone. Unadkat celebrated with great passion, running hard and punching the Saurashtra crest on his jersey. Later in the day, he said that he was getting reverse swing and that Jaffer probably was still thinking about his dismissal from the previous game.
At 63 for 3, it wasn’t the best of starts for Vidarbha on the opening day of the Ranji final. Captain Fazal can’t blame anyone but himself. He had squirted the ball to square-leg and was almost jogging in for the second run, thinking the throw would go to the non-striker’s end. But he was shocked when Sakariya fired in a flat and fast throw to the ‘keeper to catch him short as he was slow to ground the bat. That school-boy error had put his team in trouble.
Vidarbha’s middle order couldn’t do much. Mohit Kale and Ganesh Satish tried to bail their team out and took their time. They killed time for 19 overs, adding 46 runs but off-spinner Kamlesh Makwana got the breakthrough on a pitch that had begun to slow down. Kale, who had batted patiently for 124 balls, tried to repeat a late cut but this time the ball bounced more than he anticipated, and he edged a simple catch to Harvik Desai at first slip.
Ganesh looked good for his 32 and his only error proved costly. Caught in two minds whether to play or leave, he was a touch late in pulling his bat away and by then, the ball from Mankad had taken the edge en route to wicketkeeper Snell Patel, who took a sharp catch. Two overs later, Aditya Sarvate tried to turn Jadeja to the leg-side but the ball bounded off his gloves and popped up for Desai to take another simple catch at slip.
Luckily for Vidarbha, wicketkeeper-batsman Akshay Wadkar stood up, along with Akshay Karnewar. The Akshays added 57 runs for the seventh wicket but with just three overs left in the day, Wadkar, who had batted quite nicely for his 45 with five fours, hit a tame shot off Sakariya straight to the short-cover fielder.
It was a day when Saurashtra stuck to their discipline and let match pressure tell on Vidarbha, who gifted quite a few wickets away. At 200/7, Saurashtra would be the happier team no doubt; now it will all come down to how their batsmen handle the pressure of a Ranji final.
A reasonable reward: Kotak
PTI adds from Nagpur: Saurashtra coach Sitanshu Kotak was all smiles after being “rewarded reasonably” for their disciplined effort. Kotak said removing Jaffer, who has a penchant to produce big hundreds, cheaply and the strange dismissal of rival captain Faiz Fazal allowed them to take control over the proceedings.
“Wasim bhai likes to go for his shots but today he sort of held back. The wicket was also slow and a bit damp today. We had a decent day after losing toss. We would also have batted first upon winning the toss,” said Kotak. “We were very disciplined, intensity was there and we have been reasonably rewarded. We kept getting wickets at intervals. We were lucky to get that Faiz wicket (strange run out). “It’s definitely not a wicket where you can bowl out opposition for 150, so we have done well.”
