Nagpur: Left-handed batter Yash Rathod slammed his second century of Ranji Trophy as he bailed out Vidarbha from a precarious position on the opening day of their match against Pondicherry on Friday.
From four wickets down by the eighth over of the day, Vidarbha recovered and ended the day at 261-8. Harsh Dubey was unbeaten on 69 and had the company of medium pacer Aditya Thakare (5) when the stumps were drawn.
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Vidarbha seems to have some liking with the figure of ‘118’. In their first match against Andhra at home, they were bundled out for 118 in the first innings. Then, in the second essay, Atharva Taide hit exactly 118 to put Vidarbha in a match-winning position. On Friday at the Siechem Stadium in Pondicherry, Rathod slammed exactly the same runs (118) which helped Vidarbha recover from 4-14 to 8-261. This was Rathod’s second hundred after he had scored one earlier this year (141) in last season’s Ranji game against Madhya Pradesh at home.
It was once again a disastrous start by the Akshay Wadkar-led side who opted to bat first after winning the toss. Top four batters, including last match’s centurion Taide (2), Dhruv Shorey (6), Aman Mokhade (1) and Karun Nair (1), fell cheaply. Half of Vidarbha batters were back to the pavilion before the lunch break. Rathod and captain Wadkar (31) then stemmed the rot with a 65-run partnership for the fifth wicket and then Akshay Karnewar added 50 runs more in Rathod’s company to stabilise the two-time Ranji champion’s innings.
But the most crucial partnership was between Rathod and Dubey who put 120 runs for the seventh wicket which took Vidarbha’s total past 250-mark. Rathod’s fighting innings finally came to an end in the 81st over when off-spinner Fabid Ahmed got him caught and bowled. Rathod had hit eight boundaries in his 196-ball stay in the middle.
Pondicherry pacer Gaurav Yadav did the maximum damage in Vidarbha’s batting line-up taking three wickets while spinners Sagar Udeshi and Ahmed took two each and Aman Khan one. Vidarbha made three changes from their first game. Karnewar, Praful Hinge and Shorey came in place of Umesh Yadav, Nachiket Bhute and Danish Malewar.
