Siddharth Desai spins out Vidarbha, puts Gujarat in sight of win

Nagpur, Jan 18 (PTI) Left-arm spinner Siddharth Desai shone bright with a six-wicket haul to put Gujarat on the verge of victory against Vidarbha on the second day of their Ranji Trophy Group D match here on Wednesday.

On an action-filled day, Gujarat resumed at 188 for five before being bowled out for 256, giving the visiting side a 182-run lead.

Aarya Desai (88) and Bhargav Merai (40) were the main contributors in Gujarat’s total, while left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate (5/64) was the best bowler for Vidarbha.

In the second innings, Jitesh Sharma (69) top-scored for the home team and there were useful contributions from Atharva Taide (44), Nachiket Bhute (42) and Akshay Wadkar (34), but they were bowled out for 254 in 65.5 overs.

The 22-year old Siddharth did the star turn for Gujarat, picking up six wickets including that of Wadkar, Bhute and Sanjay Ramaswamy (18).

Requiring 73 runs for victory, Gujarat were on 6 for 1, losing Priyesh Patel for a duck. The visitors need 67 more runs for an outright win.

Meanwhile in Mohali, Punjab had defending champions Madhya Pradesh in trouble, reducing them to 150 for 6 at stumps on day two after piling up 443, thanks to a superb double ton by Nehal Wadhera (214).

Brief scores:

At Nagpur: Vidarbha 74 all out in 30.3 overs (Tejas Patel 5/19, Chintan Gaja 5/31) and 254 all out in 65.5 overs (J M Sharma 69, Atharva Taide 44; S A Desai 6/74) vs Gujarat 256 all out in 70.1 overs (Aarya Desai 88, B H Merai 40; AA Sarvate 5/64) and 6 for 1.

At Mohali: Punjab 443 all out in 116.2 overs (Nehal Wadhera 214, Anmolpreet Singh 124; Puneet Dubey 3/91) vs Madhya Pradesh 150 for 6 in 54.4 overs (Yash Dubey 50, Shubham Sharma 50; Abhishek Sharma 2/26, Mayank Markande 2/37).

At Jammu: Jammu & Kashmir 241 for 3 in 103 overs (Abhinav Puri 121, Shubham Khajuria 53, Vivrant Sharma 55) vs Tripura.

At Chandigarh: Railways 386 all out in 108.1 overs (Vivek Singh 108, Upendra, Yadav 113, Karn Sharma 30; Sandeep Sharma 6/116) vs Chandigarh 212 for 2 in 67 overs (Manan Vohra 113 batting, Kunal Mahajan 66 batting).