E-Paper
Wet outfield helps Red fight another day against Blue
GREATER NOIDA: Over two sessions of fourth day’s play of Duleep Trophy final between India Blue and India Red were washed out on Tuesday, thanks to an hour-long
GREATER NOIDA: Over two sessions of fourth day’s play of Duleep Trophy final between India Blue and India Red were washed out on Tuesday, thanks to an hour-long spell of rain in the morning. It was a disconcerting throwback to the rain-ruined second match of the tournament. However, not entire sense of déjà vu was marked with gloom, as Blue’s openers, for the fifth time in row, cruised to a fifty-plus opening stand.
Their 67-run partnership though was Gautam Gambhir and Mayank Agarwal’s lowest of the series. Also, for the first time in this tournament, Gambhir, dismissed for 36 runs, failed to go past 50. He ends the series with 356 runs from five innings, and a more than a healthy average of 71.2.
RAIN DELAY A heavy spell of rain, that started at 10:30 am left damp patches on the field that delayed the start by four-and-a-half hours. Half an hour later, Red’s bowler Pradeep Sangwan complained of soggy ground in his run-up. Play was held up for another 75 minutes before ground staff, not for the first time in this tournament, beat the odds to ensure some game for over 5000-strong crowd.
KULDEEP IMPRESSES
Kuldeep Yadav has been a transformed bowler under lights, but was rendered ineffective by the slowness of the track in first innings where he conceded 214 runs at close to 5 runs per over. On Tuesday, after the second restart, he was the most impressive bowler on view.
Before this match, the 21-year-old chinaman had told HT that it would be a challenge to bowl to Gambhir. As it turned out, he has scalped his Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper in both innings. Gambhir’s first innings dismissal may be attributed to low bounce, but on Tuesday, Yadav got drift, dip and enough turn to beat one of the better players of spin. Later, he also got Mayank Agarwal, who tried to hit him to mid-wicket fence.
Dinesh Karthik was typically fidgety during his 12-ball stay at the crease. On more than one occasion, he swung and missed, and despite crunching three well-timed boundaries, never looked in complete control. Amit Mishra, after being hit through covers by Karthik in the previous over, offered generous flight and loop to draw the Tamil Nadu batsman out of the crease, and wicket-keeper Ankush Bains completed the stumping.
Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, sent in ahead of Cheteshwar Pujara to get maximum match practice ahead of the Test series, ended the day with Blues 476 runs ahead and Duleep Trophy firmly in their grasp.
