Saurashtra reaches the Ranji Trophy final for the second consecutive time after beating Gujarat in the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy 2019/20. On the final day of this semi-final, Saurashtra captain Jaydev Unadkat dominated with the ball in hand and secured the 92 runs victory.
Chasing down the fourth innings target of 327 runs, Gujarat began the day five on their overnight score of 7/1. At the end of the match, they were bundled out for 234 runs.
Gujarat were under pressure from the morning session of the final day as they lost the fifth wicket in that innings on just 63 runs. From that pressure situation, skipper Parthiv Patel and Chirag Gandhi fought hard and tried to bring back the team into the challenging position.
Both of them played strong cricket and built up the crucial 158 runs partnership for the sixth wicket. But once that partnership was broken, Gujarat tail-enders failed to continue that battle. Fighting on 221/5, Gujarat side lost their last five wickets in just 13 runs.
Both Parthiv and Chirag missed out their centuries. While the Gujarat captain scored 93 runs off 148 balls (13 fours), Chirag was bowled on 96 runs off 139 balls (16 fours). Both of them were dismissed by the Saurashtra captain.
Saurashtra captain Jaydev Unadkat has taken 65 wickets in this Ranji Trophy season
The 28-year-old left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat finished the fourth innings with the bowling figures of 22.2-11-56-7. He also took three wickets (24-3-86-3) during Gujarat’s first innings of this match as the left-arm pacer claimed a ten-wicket haul.
Before the final of this tournament, Unadkat has taken 65 wickets in this season, including seven five-wicket hauls and three ten-wicket hauls. He is just four wickets away to create a record in Ranji Trophy history with most wickets in a season. Only Bihar left-arm spinner Ashutosh Aman is ahead of Unadkat in this list with 68 wickets during 2018/19 Ranji Trophy season.
Earlier, in the semi-final match between Gujarat and Saurashtra, Gujarat won the toss and decided to field first. Sheldon Jackson’s (103) century helped Saurashtra to score 304 runs in the first innings while Gujarat were bowled out for 252 runs.
Starting their second innings with the lead of 52 runs, Arpit Vasavada’s (139) heroic century helped Saurashtra to manage the total of 274 runs.
In the Ranji Trophy 2019/20 final, Saurashtra will face Bengal at Rajkot which will begin from 9th March. In the last season’s final, Saurashtra suffered a 78-run defeat against Vidarbha.