RANJI TROPHY FINAL 2017/18: Day 4 – Vidarbha wins its 1st Ranji title thanks to the Wadkar and Gurbani show

Vidarbha defeated 7 time champions Delhi by 9 wickets to win their maiden Ranji title.

Akshay Wakhare took four wickets to restrict Delhi to 280

Vidarbha clinched its maiden Ranji trophy title as they outplayed seven times champions Delhi in four days, at the Holkar Stadium in Indore, in the Ranji Trophy 2017/18 season.

Navdeep Saini picked up 5 wickets as he ended the Vidarbha innings early on the fourth morning. Akshay Wadkar’s innings finally ended on 133 runs off 262 balls, as he was dismissed by Kheroliya. Siddhesh Neral scored his career best 74 runs, before falling to Saini.

Vidarbha managed to put 547 runs on the board, thanks to the massive contribution from their lower order. They led Delhi by 252 runs in the first innings.

Delhi had a tough task of making more than 400-450 runs in order to set a hard target for Vidarbha in the fourth innings.

However, Wakhare removed Chandela for 9 runs and Gurbani accounted for veteran Gambhir for 36. First innings centurion Dhruv Shorey was going good, scoring 62 runs and with Nitish Rana (64) added 114 runs for the 3rd wicket. But Sarwate removed Shorey and Gurbani removed Rana to put Delhi on the path of self destruction.

Captain Rishab Pant scored 32, before mistiming one from Neral. Wakhare then removed Himmat Singh for 0 and Manan Sharma for 8 to reduce Delhi to 228/7. Navdeep Saini went next for 5 runs and the ominous innings defeat looked real for Delhi.

But Vikas Mishra (34) and Akash Sudan (18) hit some quick runs to take Delhi to 280, before Sarwate ended Sudan’s innings. Delhi earned a lead of 29 runs and earned the moral victory of making Vidarbha bat again to win the Ranji Trophy title.

Vidarbha lost Faiz Fazal to Khejroliya, but with experienced Jaffer on the crease, Vidarbha managed to achieve the target on fourth day itself.

Vidarbha won the match by 9 wickets and lifted their maiden Ranji Trophy title.

BRIEF SCORES:

DELHI 295 & 280 (N RANA 64, D SHOREY 62; A WAKHARE 4/95) AND
VIDARBHA 547 (A WADKAR 133, A SARWATE 79, S NERAL 74; N SAINI 5/135) & 32/1 (W JAFFER 17*)

VIDARBHA WON THE MATCH BY 9 WICKETS AND WON THEIR MAIDEN RANJI TROPHY 2017/18 TITLE

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 01 Jan, 2018

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