If this game is about cashing in on opportunities when they come only once in a while, Kerala kept losing those, while Vidarbha took a firm grip on the Ranji Trophy final. On the fourth and penultimate day at VCA Stadium in Nagpur, the home team added 249 runs to their first-innings lead of 37 to stretch the tally to 286 with six wickets still in hand. Karun Nair and Danish Malwar shared another big stand to help Vidarbha stretch their lead and take the summit clash away from Kerala.
That process began when Kerala had a golden chance to get back in the game. Nair and Malwar had lifted Vidarbha from seven for two and taken the total to 55, when Eden Apple Tom forced an outside edge off Nair’s bat. The simple chance was put down by Akshay Chandran at first slip. The pair remained non-separated for 40 more overs and added 182 for the third wicket. The seasoned player and the youngster in his debut season had shared a stand of 215 in the first innings.
Chandran and Kerala’s captain Sachin Baby had dropped catches at crucial stages in the semi-final against Gujarat also, but managed to wrest a two-run lead. They have been sloppy in this game too, losing wickets in a cluster and not using the spinners together in the second innings. Two of their three fast bowlers received last warnings for running on to the pitch. Add Baby’s suicidal dismissal for 98 and a lot of things that could have gone wrong for Kerala went wrong.
Little went wrong for Nair and Malewar in this game, in this season rather. Nair, who made 328 for Karnataka in the 2014-15 Ranji final against Tamil Nadu, was run out for 86 in the first innings in this one. He brought up his fourth century of the season (unbeaten on 132) and third in the last four games. The 33-year-old with a Test triple century to his credit had also made five centuries in the Vijay Hazare one-dayers. Having won the Ranji title twice with Karnataka, Nair is well set for another with his adopted state.
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Kerala looked short of ideas. For a long time in the first session and a reasonable period after lunch, they didn’t deploy together the off-spin of Jalaj Saxena and the left-arm orthodox variety of Aditya Sarwate. The in-form spinners were expected to be the trump cards on a fourth-day pitch with roughs on both ends. But Baby persisted with the quicker bowlers from around the wicket until N Basil and MD Nidheesh ran on to the danger area on the pitch a bit too often.
Malewar fell for 73 after making 153 in the first innings. A tally of 783 in 15 innings with two centuries and six fifties was astonishing work from the 21-year-old in his debut season. Yash Rathod had a quiet final but scored the eight runs needed to become the highest-scorer of the season. The left-hander finished with 960 runs. A day earlier, left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey had set a record for the most wickets — 69 — in a Ranji season.
Landmarks, individual and collective, are in the bag. Vidarbha are on their way to winning India’s biggest first-class title for the third time in seven years.
Brief scores: Vidarbha 379 & 249/4 (Karun Nair 132 batting, Danish Malewar 73) vs Kerala 342.
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