Bengaluru: Mumbai made giant inroads into Madhya Pradesh’s first-innings lead in the Ranji Trophy final on Saturday. At stumps, Mumbai were 113/2, cutting MP’s 162-run lead to just 49 runs making the fifth day all too crucial at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Prithvi Shaw and Hardik Tamore played at blistering pace and stitched a 63-run stand for the opening wicket. Yashasvi Jaiswal, the usual opener alongside Shaw, was made to wait because her had not taken the field earlier with an ankle injury.
Shaw (44 from 52 balls) and Tamore (25 from 32 balls) were the two wickets to fall for Mumbai before play was stopped with bad light. Both were given reprieves and made it count by adding some invaluable runs.
Gaurav Yadav was guilty of dropping a Shaw, then at 6 runs, pull to the ground at fine leg. In the next over, a Tamore cut flew to Rajat Patidar who spilled the chance at slip. The Mumbai wicketkeeper batter was on 4 runs at that time.
Armaan Jaffer (30 from 34 balls) and Suved Parkar (9 from 14 balls) remained unbeaten at close. Jaffer, too, was given a life and has the opportunity to make MP pay on Day 5.
Earlier, an hour’s play was lost because of rain. As a result, play will start early on the final day with 95 overs to be bowled. A minimum 80 overs will be stretched before a mandatory 15 overs in the final hour.
In the first innings, Madhya Pradesh took a 162-run lead on the back of a sensational century from Patidar. The 29-year-old scored 122 runs for what was MP’s third century of the inning.
By piling up 536 runs in response to Mumbai’s 374, MP took a commanding lead over the 41-time Ranji Trophy champions. Madhya Pradesh, meanwhile, are chasing their first domestic title in red ball cricket.
Saransh Jain scored a half century (57 from 97 balls) to go with the three centuries scored by MP. For Mumbai, Shams Mulani picked up a fifer.
After losing three wickets (skipper Aditya Shrivastava, Akshat Raghuvanshi and Parth Sahani) in the morning session without much contribution to the scoreboard, Patidar dominated and brought up his century before lunch.
His eighth first-class hundred came a month after scoring his first IPL century.
Amid chants of “RCB, RCB, RCB” from the crowd, clearly recalling his century for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL playoffs, Patidar punched a delivery by Tushar Deshpande to deep point to collect a double for a ton in 163 balls.
This was MP’s third century of the final with Yash Dubey (133) and Shubham Sharma (116) also slamming three figure scores. Before the final, Mumbai hadn’t conceded a single century in the Ranji Trophy season.
Patidar came into the Ranji Trophy final on the back of 85 against Punjab in the quarter-final and 79 against Bengal in the last-four.
Like the batters before him, Patidar, too, enjoyed his share of luck. He was dismissed off a Shams Mulani no-ball on Friday when he was on 52 runs.
His luck ran out when batting on 122 runs, he was dismissed by Deshpande. The well-set Patidar was done in by a beautiful delivery that found the gap between bat and pad while the right-hander went for a drive.
Soon after Kumar Kartikeya became the ninth wicket to fall, the erratic Bengaluru weather made its presence felt. Drizzle was replaced by heavy shower which resulted in the field being covered and an early Tea break.
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