Ranji Trophy Highlights: Harsh Dubey and Salil Arora Shine
A nine-wicket haul from Harsh Dubey and a fourth successive Ranji Trophy ton from Punjab’s Salil Arora were the highlights of the day one of the fourth round of the Ranji Trophy on Monday.
Harsh registered the best-ever figures for Vidarbha in first-class cricket while Salil entered the top three run-getters in the tournament so far, with 489 runs across six innings at an average of 122.75, with four centuries.
Elite Group Performances
Group A and B Updates
Elite, Group A: MP won the toss and elected to bat first against Vidarbha. Atharva Mahajan (85 in 123 balls, with five fours and three sixes) and Saransh Jain (34 in 41 balls, with seven fours) were the only one to have put up a fight as Harsh (9/53 in 23.1 overs) ran riot over MP’s batting. MP was skittled out for just 209 runs. Skipper Rajat Patidar could score just two. Vidarbha, the three-time champions, ended their day at 56/4, with Dhruv Shorey (21*) and skipper Akshay Wadkar (9*) unbeaten. Kumar Kartikeya took three wickets.
Elite, Group B: In their Group B clash against Andhra Pradesh, Punjab was put to bat first. Vihaan Malhotra (30) and Prabhsimran Singh (24) got starts up top but they failed to make the most of it. Punjab collapsed to 71/5, but centuries from Salil (111* in 186 balls, with 11 fours and three sixes) and Sanvir Singh (100* in 183 balls, with 13 fours) took Punjab to 276/5 to end the day. The clash between Assam and Karnataka witnessed the former electing to bat first and being skittled out for 135 runs after five-wicket hauls from Ritesh Bhatkal and Shikhar Shetty. Karnataka ended the day at 180/2, with Rohan Patil (89 in 87 balls, with 13 fours and six) and skipper Mayank Agarwal (57* in 95 balls, with seven fours) scoring fifties.
Group C and D Updates
Elite, Group C: The Group C clash between Bengal and Maharashtra saw the latter opting to field first. Bengal’s batting underwhelmed once again as they were skittled out for just 143 runs, with a 67-ball 54 from Abishek Porel being the only sign of fight from the team. Pradeep Dadhe and Tanay Sanghvi took three wickets each. Maharashtra ended the day at 21/2, with Mohammed Shami getting both the wickets, including that of Prithvi Shaw (12).
Elite, Group D: Shifting the focus to the Mumbai versus Railways clash, Railways elected to field first. An 109 run stand between Divyaansh Saxena (39 in 96 balls, with four boundaries) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi started off things for domestic giants. Musheer Khan (4) failed to make an impact, while Angkrish fell for 78 off 122 balls, with 11 fours and two sixes. Skipper Siddesh Lad (47 in 125 balls, with four boundaries) and Sarfaraz Khan (55 in 100 balls, with seven fours) posted crucial knocks as Mumbai ended their day at 247/6, with Himanshu Sangwan (3/32) being the pick of the bowlers.