By Paritosh Pramanik
Oct 26, 2025
VIDARBHA bowlers, without the services of spinner Harsh Dubey and pacer Yash Thakur, toiled hard in a rain-truncated opening day of their Ranji Trophy match against Jharkhand at VCA’s Jamtha Stadium on Saturday. Put into bat, Jharkhand were 119 for no loss from 38 overs when the play was stopped 45 minutes before scheduled time due to bad light.
Dubey and Thakur have been summoned for India ‘A’ duty and Vidarbha missed the two badly as none of the other front-line bowlers could manage to pose a threat to the two Jharkhand openers.
Left-hander Shikhar Mohan (60*, 127b, 5x4) and Sharadeep Singh (46*, 101b, 4x4) did not give Vidarbha any space to dominate with their composed batting putting up an unbeaten century run stand.
The first session of the day was completely washed out and play was not possible for more than three hours forcing the teams to stay inside the dressing room.
The rain started an hour and a half before the start of play in the morning and continued till noon. There were short passages without a drop but as soon as umpires ventured into the field for inspection, it started to drizzle again. This happened on more than three occasions. The first inspection was at 10.10 am and then after another 20 minutes. There was another inspection at 11.05 am but as it happened earlier in the day, it started drizzling again.
Finally, it was at around 12 noon that the rain stopped and groundsmen started removing the covers. The umpires inspected the outfield immediately. Heavy roller was used to roll the pitch which was under covers for whole morning.
With overcast conditions, Vidarbha’s decision to bowl first backfired as they failed to make an impact with the ball in the first session with Jharkhand putting up 66 without any dent at tea.
The three-pronged pace attack of Darshan Nalkande, Nachiket Bhute and Praful Hinge did manage to swing deliveries which passed the bat from kissing distance but the end result was in negative. Vidarbha started with Parth Rekhade who bowled the second over of the day but the spinner was removed after only two overs. It was only after tea that he was re-introduced because of bad light but again had to be pulled out as the light improved and umpires allowed pacers to operate.
Jharkhand batters Mohan and Singh did a fabulous job for their side by applying themselves. While Mohan started with a couple of boundaries off Nalkande’s first over, Singh lowered his guard and played the second fiddle. Vidarbha had a chance but Aman Mokhade dropped Mohan at 27 in the gully region.
Mohan made most of the reprieve and a boundary towards mid-wicket and a single next ball off Rekhade brought a well-deserved half century for him. The knock came from 112 balls with four boundaries.
In the process the two also added 100 runs from 201 deliveries for the opening wicket to put their side in a position of strength.
No comments:
Post a Comment