Duleep Trophy: India Blue to meet India Red in the finals
Sep 8, 2016 at 9:30 AM
The eventual winner of the game was already decided at the third day’s play, the players on the final day were only performing the formalities and rituals. Some of them were out there for personal milestones as well.
On the final day of the play, the discarded Indian batsman Gautam Gambir and Mayank Agarwal stepped on the field with a sole purpose of scoring centuries but India Green bowler Jalaj Saxena did not let that happen. He bowled out Gambhir and Agarwal on a score of 59 and 58 respectively. It was a perfect revenge by him as he did not let any these batsman to accomplish the personal milestone. Rest of the India Green batsmen were regular visitors on the crease as India Blue kept losing wickets on a regular interval. India Blue was bowled on a score of 298 with Jackson missing out on a century as he ran out of partners.
There was a scary movement in the day’s play when India Green spinner Pragyan Ojha was hit by the pink ball on his head. Ojha was fielding at mid-on, the ball was slowly coming towards him, he sat on his one knee to gather the ball but ball out of nowhere took an ascending lift and hit Ojha on his head. Ojha was immediately taken to the nearby hospital for the tests.
In the evening BCCI confirmed that Ojha is fit as the board tweeted a smiling photo of Ojha.
The India Green batsmen when got a chance to bat enjoyed their stay on the crease by playing 34 overs in the evening. Murali Vijay and Robin Uthappa made most out of the evening scoring half centuries. It was perfect practice for Vijay who will be part of upcoming home Test series against New Zeeland.
After a play of 143 minutes, both the captains decided to shake hand and call it for the day.
India Blue led by Gautam Gambhir qualified for the finals by virtue of first innings lead over India Green. The India Blue will now face India Red team in the final of the inaugural edition of pink ball Duleep trophy at the same venue from September 10 in a five-day affair.
The BCCI has made some additions to both the teams. Amit Mishra, Shikhar Dhawan and Start Binny have been placed in India Red team whereas India Blue will get the services of Rohit Sharma and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in the finals.