Ranji Trophy: Ronit More bags 5 to reduce Saurashtra to 227/7

Bengaluru: Karnataka pacer Ronit More’s five-wicket haul on Friday put the Ranji Trophy semifinal against Saurashtra in the balance. At stumps on day two, the visitors were 227 for seven, still trailing by 48 runs.

Saurashtra had an edge over Karnataka when they looked cruising at 177 for three, but Cheteshwar Pujara’s dismissal, five short of a half-century, triggered a collapse. Pujara should have been in the dressing room early, but an umpiring howler had helped him prolong his innings.

Pujara who celebrated his 31st birthday on Friday was on one when umpire Khalid Sayed gave him a reprieve. Replays suggested that the ball clearly nicked Pujara’s glove before it landed in wicket-keeper’s hands. The ‘unlucky’ bowler Abhimanyu Mithun later sent Pujara back by taking a catch on his own bowling.

Ronit ripped through Saurashtra’s middle and lower order to claim his fourth five-for of the season. Vinay Kumar also bowled probing spells but couldn’t bag wickets consistently.  

Wicket-keeper batsman Snell Patel scored 85 off 131 balls and Sheldon Jackson slammed a blistering 46.

Ronit said the plan was to keep it tight when Snell and Pujara were in the middle for the third wicket partnership that fetched Saurashtra 74 runs. “We were bowling well, but we were just unlucky. We could have picked a couple of more wickets during that period. There was nothing much happening on the wicket either,” he said.

At the stroke of tea, Saurashtra lost the wicket of Snell who was caught down leg-side by wicketkeeper Srinivas Sharath. Snell tried to pull a short ball off Shreyas Gopal.

Sheldon’s 62-ball knock comprised four boundaries and two mammoth sixes.

Sheldon, however, edged a Ronit delivery to the wicket-keeper.  Prerak Mankad lasted just two balls as another umpiring error, this time favouring the hosts, took the centrestage. Prerak was given ‘caught behind’ for a duck.

With Kamlesh Makwana’s wicket, another catch to the ’keeper Sharath, Ronit claimed his fifth wicket. Earlier, Karnataka were bundled out for 275, adding just 11 runs to their overnight total. Srinivas Sharath remained unbeaten on 83 runs.

Ranji semifinal scores
Kerala 105 & 91 in 24.5 overs (K.B. Arun Karthick 36, Umesh Yadav 5/31, Yash Thakur 4/28) lost to Vidarbha 208 in 52.4 overs (Faiz Fazal 75, Wasim Jaffer 34, Sandeep Warrier 5/57, Basil Thampi 3/64).

Karnataka 275 in 100.3 overs (S. Gopal 87, S Sharath 83*; J Unadkat 4/56) vs Saurashtra 227/7 in 66.3 overs (Snell Patel 85, Ronit More 5/54).