NAGPUR: Sachin Baby sunk to his knees after having miscued the slog sweep. Playing his 100th first-class game, the Kerala skipper had till then been concentration personified for 235 balls. That ill-fated shot on Day Three of the Ranji Trophy final at Jamtha Stadium on Friday, however, allowed Vidarbha the way back into the game. Just two short of his century, and with Kerala 56 adrift of Vidarbha’s first-innings total, Baby (98; 235b, 10×4) attempted the uncharacteristic shot off left-arm spinner Parth Rekhade. He couldn’t connect properly, and Karun Nair at deep midwicket promptly pouched the skier.
As the Vidarbha players danced in celebration, Baby remained on his knees, the costly error of judgement having sunk in.
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After Baby’s dismissal, Jalaj Saxena and the tail batted for 15.1 overs, scoring just 18 runs as Kerala were dismissed for 342. In between, Vidarbha’s Harsh Dubey trapped Nidheesh MD LBW to enter the record books as the man to take the most wickets in a Ranji Trophy season.
“Baby played a good knock. I think his plan was to hold one end. But a brain-fade moment resulted in his wicket. Definitely, that was a turning point for us as he was building a good partnership with Jalaj Saxena. Our plan was to stop the runs and wait for a bad shot,” Dubey said about Baby’s dismissal.
The end of Day Three saw Vidarbha earn a slender 37-run lead. The final, though, is far from over. Having Jalaj Saxena and Aditya Sarvate, spinners of high repute, Kerala will still be harbouring thoughts of plotting a Vidarbha collapse on a pitch assisting tweakers.
Friday’s action was all about two milestone men — Baby and Dubey — toiling hard under the harsh sun. Baby started the day with a boundary. Aditya Sarwate, who led the Kerala charge the other day, though, looked a bit edgy. Sarwate’s 79-run knock (185b;10×4) ended when a Harsh Dubey ball rose sharply to hit the shoulder of his bat and lobbed up to close in fielder Danish Malewar.
BRIEF SCORES: Vidarbha 379 in 123.1 overs lead Kerala (overnight 131/3 in 39 overs) 342 in 125 overs (Sachin Baby 98, Aditya Sarvate 79, Ahammed Imran 37, Mohammed Azharuddeen 34, Jalaj Saxena 28; Parth Rekhade 3-65, Harsh Dubey 3-88, Darshan Nalkande 3-52, Yash Thakur 1-83) by 37 runs.
