Indore: Rajneesh Gurbani’s sensational hat-trick coupled with the experience of Wasim Jaffer helped Vidarbha stay in front in their clash against Delhi on the second day of the Ranji Trophy final on Saturday.
Gurbani, who suffered from an ankle injury on the first day turned on the heat on the second as he took a hat-trick in the final, and also became the second bowler, after Tamil Nadu’s B Kalyanasundaram achieved the feat way back in the 1972/1973 Ranji Trophy final against Mumbai, then known as Bombay.
The right-arm pace bowling sensation claimed the wickets of Vikas Misra (7), Navdeep Saini (0) in the last two balls of the 101st over and then returned to send back to knock off Delhi’s star with the bat Dhruv Shorey for 145 in the first ball of the 103rd over. As a matter of fact, Delhi looked good for a total of around 300-350 after ending the first day on 271/6 but Gurbani scalped four quick wickets in a space of seven balls and claimed figures of 6/59 to bowl out the Rishabh Pant led side for just 295.
Coming in to bat, the first-time finalists rode on a solid 96-run opening stand between skipper Faiz Fazal (67) and Sanjay Ramaswamy (36). From 96/0, Vidarbha lost quick wickets in the form of the openers and Ganesh Satish (12) to be reduced to 133/3 at one stage. But Jaffer, who has featured in many Ranji Trophy finals read the situation well and slowly built his innings to end the day with 61 runs from 120 balls. Vidarbha would bank heavily on the veteran, who hit eight fours in his knock to help them overhaul the Delhi total and gain a significant first innings lead.
For Delhi, Akash Sudan took two wickets while Saini and Kulwant Khejroliya scalped one apiece.
Brief scores- Vidarbha- 206/4 (Faiz Fazal 67, Wasim Jaffer 61 n.o; Akash Sudan 2/53) trail Delhi 295 (Dhruv Shorey 145, Himmat Singh 66; Rajneesh Gurbani 6/59) by 89 runs