Ranji Trophy 2019-20, Round 3 – Mumbai’s worst Ranji defeat, Vinay’s record, A wicket for Pujara after 12 years and more stats

Only seven matches across the first two rounds of the Ranji Trophy 2019-20 ended in a draw but as many as 8 out of the 18 matches in 3rd round ended in a draw. Delayed start on 2nd day’s play due to solar eclipse and rain delays in few matches caused an increase in the number of drawn matches.

Mumbai’s 10-wicket defeat against Railways was one of the talking points of this round. Saurashtra lost by an innings despite the presence of Cheteshwar Pujara. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were dismissed for low totals on the first day but both teams managed to drew conceding the first-innings lead.

All the statistical highlights from the 3rd round game of the Ranji Trophy 2019-20:

1 – Mumbai’s 10-wicket loss against Railways was their biggest in terms of wickets in the Ranji Trophy. They lost by a 9-wicket margin on a few occasions but never lost by 10 wickets in the Ranji Trophy prior to this 3rd round.

However, it was only their 2nd defeat in first-class cricket by 10 wickets. They lost to Rest of India in the 2000/01 season’s Irani Cup by 10 wickets also hosted by Mumbai’s Wankhede.

9 – Paras Dogra now has nine double centuries in the Ranji Trophy history; two more than any other player. Dogra scored his 8th Ranji double last season and went past Ajay Sharma’s record of seven 200s.

17 – Umesh Yadav bowled 17 overs in the 3rd round game against Punjab; the 2nd most overs he bowled in a Ranji Trophy match without taking a wicket. Umesh bowled 30 overs across both innings during the 2015/16 season match against Orrisa, the most he bowled without taking a wicket in a match in his 29-match Ranji Trophy career. Interestingly, Umesh scored his only first-class hundred in that game.

20 – Andhra’s KV Sasikanth took 20 wickets across his last four innings of Ranji Trophy with at least one 4-fer in all four innings. He took 4/64 in the Round 3 match against Bengal before bagging 5/41 and 5/38 during the last round game against Delhi. He ended the last season with a 6/18 against Madhya Pradesh. Prior to the game against Bengal, Sasikanth took at least one 5-fer in his last four Ranji Trophy games.

48/50 – Gujarat’s Chintan Gaja scored 48 runs out of the 50-run 10th wicket partnership with Siddarth Desai against Kerala. Desai didn’t score a run in that partnership with other two runs came through extras.

412 – With 412 wickets, Vinay Kumar became the most prolific pacer in the history of Ranji Trophy. He went past Pankaj Singh’s tally of 409 wickets and is now the 7th highest wicket-taker in Ranji Trophy. Vinay picked up three wickets apiece in both the innings against Mizoram while representing Puducherry.

2007 – The last instance of Cheteshwar Pujara picking up a wicket in a professional match was way back in 2007. He took Mohit Jangra’s wicket in the 3rd round game against Uttar Pradesh with the 2nd ball he bowled. Pujara had five wickets before this game in his professional career; all in first-class cricket between 2006 and 2007.