Rishabh Pant’s whirlwind 61 and his quick-fire stand of 72 with Sarfaraz Khan propelled India B into a good position against India A in the Duleep Trophy match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday. At stumps, they were in front by 240 runs. Earlier, Navdeep Saini and Mukesh Kumar had shared six wickets between them to ensure India B would take a 90-run first innings lead.
Despite taking that healthy lead, India B were in a spot of bother at the start of their second innings, losing three wickets for just 22 runs. Curiously, just like a couple of India A batters, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Musheer Khan, the first-innings centurion, also fell to deliveries that were angling down the leg-side. Dhruv Jurel grabbed a couple of fine catches.
After the lunch break, Pant and Sarfaraz decided to press the accelerator and also succeeded in disrupting the lengths of India A pace bowlers. Sarfaraz kickstarted the onslaught, cracking five boundaries off Akash Deep in the first over after the break. One of those boundaries came from a delicate late cut.
Pant then took over by collecting boundaries and sixes off Khaleel Ahmed, Akash, Avesh Khan and Kuldeep Yadav. It was a quintessential Pant innings as he blended some delightful drives and meaty pulls with a reverse scoop or two. He had his share of luck as well. As he tried a reverse scoop off Akash, the ball went right in between Jurel and the fielder at first slip. Ideally, Jurel should have gone for it. In the same over, he had another narrow escape, when one of his shots fell in no man’s land.
Pant played one shot too many and ultimately fell to Tanush Kotian. Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar then almost guided India B to close of play. However, at the fag end of the day, Nitish lost his wicket to Khaleel.
India B bowlers also deserve credit as they took eight wickets for the cost of just 97 runs on Day 3 to fold up India A for 231. Riyan Parag was caught down the leg-side, while Navdeep bowled another of those nip-backers to trap Jurel in front of the stumps.
The turning point of the innings was when KL Rahul lost his wicket on the back of some sharp turn from Washington. Mukesh and Sai Kishore then shared the rest of the wickets. Mukesh took 3 wickets for 62 runs while Navdeep had figures of 3 for 60 from 16 overs. On the other hand, enough batters from India A got starts but none of them scored a fifty.
Brief scores: India B 321 (Musheer Khan 181, Navdeep Saini 56; Akash Deep 4/60, Khaleel Ahmed 2/54) and 150/6 (Rishabh Pant 61, Sarfaraz Khan 46; Akash Deep 2/36) lead India A 231 (KL Rahul 37, Mayank Agarwal 36; Navdeep Saini 3/60, Mukesh Kumar 3/62) by 240 runs