Madhya Pradesh all-rounder Saransh Jain ran riot during his team’s Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match against Bihar in Indore on Monday.
He registered excellent figures of 7/40 from 13 overs to rattle out Bihar for just 99 runs on day one of the match.
In their reply, Madhya Pradesh were 105/0 after 18 overs at the time of writing this report, having taken a six-run lead. Yash Dubey was unbeaten on 63, whereas Saksham Purohit was not out on 36.
Fourth-placed Madhya Pradesh came into this match on the back of two consecutive draws, and had six points from the two games.
Bihar, on the other hand, is in eighth and last place in the Elite Group A standings with two losses, meaning that the Sakibul Gani-led side is yet to open their account in the ongoing season of the Ranji Trophy.
Who is Saransh Jain?
Saransh Jain is a 33-year-old all-rounder who plays for Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket and has also played for India in Tests. His father, Subodh Jain, was a former professional cricketer who played for Madhya Pradesh.
Subodh has played an important role in his son’s cricketing career, having coached him from a very young age. Saransh made his first-class debut for Madhya Pradesh in the 2014-15 season, when his team took on Tamil Nadu in a Ranji Trophy match in December 2014.
His breakthrough season in domestic cricket came during the 2021-22 season, when he played a crucial role in helping his team clinch their first-ever Ranji Trophy title. He took 13 wickets in six innings and scored a crucial half-century in the final against Mumbai.
He was even more instrumental in the 2025-26 Ranji Trophy campaign, scoring 518 runs and taking 30 wickets as Madhya Pradesh reached the quarter-finals, where they lost to Jammu & Kashmir.
He also enjoyed a productive Duleep Trophy campaign in 2025 for Central Zone, in which he scored 136 runs from three innings and picked up 16 wickets to finish as the tournament’s top wicket-taker.
When Saransh dealt with difficult times
However, amid all the success on the field, his life off the field was vastly different. Saransh’s father was diagnosed with mouth cancer when the youngster was on an exposure tour of Australia with the Madhya Pradesh cricket team in 2014.
Saransh’s family, however, hid the news of his father’s cancer from him so that Saransh could focus completely on cricket. It was only when Saransh returned home that he found out about his father’s cancer and the chemotherapy. Saransh’s father has since survived the cancer.
The 33-year-old eventually went on to make his senior India debut during the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka in August this year.
He has played just one Test so far, which was the second Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo. The right-arm off-break bowler finished with figures of 2/69 and 1/98 in both the innings.