A six-wicket haul, including a hat-trick, for Rajneesh Gurbani and half-centuries by Faiz Fazal and Wasim Jaffer allowed Vidarbha to end day two of the Ranji Trophy final against Delhi as the happier team.
Delhi were bowled out for 295 after resuming their innings at 271/6 on Saturday morning, after Gurbani ran riot. The Vidarbha pacer was forced to leave the field on the first day with a niggle but was back all guns blazing on Saturday, to Delhi’s dismay.
It took him till his seventh over of the morning to make a breakthrough after he shattered Vikas Mishra’s off-stump, but he then proceeded to uproot Navdeep Saini’s middle stump off the very next ball to end the over. Gurbani completed his hat-trick on the first ball of his following over as he got the big wicket of Dhruv Shorey, who was also bowled after scoring 145.
Vidarbha then began their first innings well, with skipper Fazal (67) and Sanjay Ramaswamy (31) sharing a 96-run opening stand. Vidarbha lost both their openers in quick succession before veteran batsman Jaffer and Ganesh Satish steadied the ship for a while.
But just as the two were settling in, Saini trapped Satish leg-before to make it 133/3, after which Apoorv Wankhade came to join Jaffer. The two rebuilt Vidarbha’s innings again, sharing a crucial 73-run stand for the fourth wicket.
Wankhade fell late in the day but Jaffer remained unbeaten on 61, as Vidarbha reached 206/4 at stumps.
Brief scores
Delhi 295 (Dhruv Shorey 145, Himmat Singh 66; Rajneesh Gurbani 6/59, Aditya Thakare 2/74) lead Vidarbha 206/4 (Faiz Fazal 67, Wasim Jaffer 61*; Akash Sudan 2/53, Kulwant Khejroliya 1/30) by 89 runs.