Pujara fails, Sarwate puts Vidarbha in pole position
NAGPUR: The calm and technically sound Cheteshwar Pujara was for the second time in the match resembled the cat on a hot tin roof against left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate on a challenging pitch as the Ranji final hit the home stretch on Wednesday.
After his rearguard 49 – innings top-score -- to help holders Vidarbha set a 206-run target, Sarwate picked three early wickets and leave Saurashtra wobbling at 58/5 at stumps on the fourth day. He had five wickets in the first innings.
He got both openers, first-innings centurion Snell Patel and Harvik Desai, before trapping Pujara leg-before for a five-ball duck in the final session. Umesh Yadav got rid of Arpit Vasavada, and just before stumps, off-spinner Akshay Wakhare bowled the seasoned Sheldon Jackson with one that turned and kept low.
Snell Patel was forced into playing one that turned and Wasim Jaffer caught in the slip. Desai’s outside edge trying to work it to the leg-side ended in a return catch. Pujara, after failing in the first innings, was under pressure with the sparse crowd chanting ‘cheater’, for not walking in semis against Karnataka.
With fielders around him, Pujara hoped to wriggle out by working the ball away. He stepped out a couple of times but couldn’t clear the ring, once even getting an inside edge. “He is starting to use his feet,” a Vidarbha fan shouted anxiously.
It was as if the first innings dismissal – edge to slip -- was on his mind. This time, he played for turn, but it kept straight and struck the pad. From 19/0, Saurashtra had their back to the wall.
Sarwate, among the grittiest players for Vidarbha and with a fifer in the first innings, was turning it on again and making life hell for Saurashtra, who are eyeing their first Ranji title.
Earlier in the day, it was Sarwate’s effort with the bat that
made the hosts to post a competitive total. After securing a fiverun lead, Vidarbha began the second innings slowly, and though scoring picked up on Tuesday evening, the batsmen went into their shell in the morning.
If the plan was to bat out, it failed against tight bowling
Bowling: J Unadkat 18-5-30-1, C Sakariya 13-4-19-1, K Makvana 25-7-51-2, D Jadeja 36.5-3-96-6
spearheaded by the season’s top wickettaker Dharmandra Jadeja, who kept taking wickets. Sarwate batted for most of the first two sessions, adding 29 for the seventh wicket, 13 for the eighth, 31 for the ninth and 22 for the last wicket, farming the strike with Rajneesh Gurbani (3*).