Ranji Trophy Final: Snell Patel, tail keep Saurashtra in hunt
Snell Patel was hurt. The physio had to run in. The pacy bouncer from Umesh Yadav had crashed into his helmet. Patel isn’t quite used to the pace of Yadav — not many domestic batsmen are — and he was left rubbing his head. Everyone looked worried, but Patel is made of sterner stuff. He took his time to recover and went on to complete a gritty hundred, a knock that he will cherish for years to come. This was the Ranji final and nearly all other specialist batsmen had struggled but he had fought on. Still, when he fell, edging Yadav behind, Saurashtra were too far away from Vidarbha.
This is when Saurashtra captain Jaydev Unadkat and the last man Chetan Sarkaria, two new ball bowlers who knew the importance of cutting down the lead, put up a wonderful partnership to take Saurashtra to 307, just five runs shy of Vidarbha’s first innings score.
Before Sarkaria, Kamlesh Makvana had tried his best to shorten the lead but when he got out, caught in slips, Saurashtra were still 65 runs behind. Unadkat had faced 21 balls for his 15 runs when the young Sakariya joined him. Vidarbha planned to get Sakariya out early but ended up focussing too much on him, which later proved out a blunder.
Unadkat later said he knew Sarkaria could bat. He had heard of his occasional competent performance with willow for the Saurashtra Under-23 team. Unadkat wasn’t in great form himself and it was the main reason he sent Dharmendrasinh Jadeja ahead of himself.
Sakariya kept defending pretty well, and Unadkat realised there were some runs be made here. They pushed, drove, and swept. They got the odd four every now and then. Unadkat, in particular, kept trying sweeps. Out of 101 balls that he faced, he went for the sweep 22 times, and twice he threw in the reverse sweep as well.
With the spinners looking helpless, Vidarbha went back to Yadav again. They hoped the fear factor might work. Twice Yadav hit Sakariya, once on his back as he tried to duck a short ball and once on the helmet, the thud of which could be heard beyond the boundary. But Sakariya didn’t show any pain.
Unadkat later talked about Sakariya’s grit.
“When he was hit, I just ran and asked, ‘Are you fine?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry mein khel loonga ( I will play). I will not make any mistake.’ He said it twice. He looked more determined than I was and showed the grit to face Yadav,” Unadkat said.
Soon the fielders spread out as Vidarbha feared that Saurashtra would take the lead. The singles and the odd boundary kept coming. Sakariya edged one behind, but Jaffer couldn’t lunge quickly enough.
With Saurashtra trailing by five runs, Unadkat went down on one knee to sweep Akshay Wakhare — his go-to shot of the day. But Wakhare had pushed this one sightly wider and the resultant top edge was pouched at square leg.
Saurashtra fell just short, but more importantly they had ensured Vidarbha wouldn’t take a big match-deciding lead. Vidarbha lost two quick wickets but will hope that Wasim Jaffer and Ganesh Satish can take them to a total they can defend. Saurashtra will hope their batsmen, who chased down two stiff fourth-innings targets in the last two games, can do it all over again.