Ranji Trophy 2018-19, Final, Day 3, Review: Game hangs in balance with both teams pushing hard for a win

Neither Vidarbha nor Saurashtra are willing to let the contest drift away in the Ranji Trophy 2018-19 final. Just like the Vidarbha lower-order, Saurashtra’s lower-order also put up a great fight after being down to 158/5 at the end of day 2. Even though the tail did manage to wag, the defending champions endured by taking a 5-run lead to get an edge over Jaydev Unadkat’s team.

Snell Patel, with an overnight score of 81, went on to register a century. He made 102 before Umesh Yadav got the better of him. With Patel falling when the team’s score was 184, Vidarbha might have sensed a huge lead. But the lower-order batsmen, Kamlesh Makvana and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja first started the fight back. These two put on 27 and 21 runs respectively before being dismissed.

Jayadev Unadkat takes the team close but Saurashtra falls agonisingly short

Then, skipper Jaydev Unadkat put up a display of his skill with the bat. He was extremely resilient and added 60 runs for the last wicket along with Chetan Sakariya. However, his team fell agonisingly short of Vidarbha’s total as Unadkat got out for 46 runs. Sakariya was unbeaten on 28 as Saurashtra finished with 307 runs on the board.

Unadkat went for a sweep but ended up mistiming it. He holed out to the fielder at backward square leg. The Saurashtra camp looked helpless as this could potentially cost them the Ranji Trophy title. The Vidarbha players celebrated as if they won the trophy after getting this tiniest of first innings lead.

It is all about playing around with time for them from here on. However, the Saurashtra bowlers weren’t going to let things sail away easily. Dharmendrasinh Jadeja dismissed both the openers cheaply as the opposition ended the day with 55/2. Ganesh Satish and Wasim Jaffer are batting out there in the middle. Yet, there is still a lot of catching up to do with about 180 overs left in the game. At the moment, the game hangs out in the balance as no team has managed to take a decisive advantage.

Brief Scores:

Vidarbha, 1st innings: 312/10 in 120.2 overs (Akshay Karnewar 73*, Akshay Wadkar 45; Jaydev Unadkat 3/54)

Saurashtra, 1st innings: 307/10 in 117 overs (Snell Patel 102, Jaydev Unadkat 46; Aditya Sarwate 5/98)

Vidarbha, 2nd innings: 55/2 in 31 overs (Ganesh Satish 24*, Sanjay Ramaswamy 16, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 2/36)

Match Situation: Vidarbha lead by 60 runs.

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