Kerala enter Ranji Trophy final for first time after dramatic draw with Gujarat
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Kerala created history by advancing to the final of the Ranji Trophy for the first time. Kerala missed the services of their best batter, Sanju Samson, who is injured, but the rest of the squad produced one miracle after another in the prestigious domestic tournament.
Kerala secured a dramatic draw against favourites Gujarat on Day 5 of the semifinals in Ahmedabad on Friday. Kerala will take on Vidarbha in the final set to begin on February 26 in Nagpur. Vidarbha crushed a star-studded Mumbai by 80 runs in the second semifinal in Nagpur earlier on the day. Kerala's previous best show in the Ranji Trophy was in 2018-19 when they made it to the semifinals.
Kerala reserved their best till the last day of the semifinals by snatching an invaluable 2-run lead. Kerala had taken a 1-run lead in the quarterfinals against Jammu & Kashmir, which helped them advance to the last-four stage. In the knockout stages of the Ranji Trophy, taking a first innings lead in considered equal to securing victory if the match ended in a draw.
So even though taking the narrow lead was a massive step toward the final, Kerala still needed to see out the remainder of the day, which had about 70 overs left. After a few minor hiccups early in their second innings, Sachin Baby's team managed to stay afloat at 114/4 from 46 overs. At that point, the Gujarat camp realised that their chances were over as they had to first bowl out Kerala and then chase down the target in less than 20 overs, which in the format, seemed an impossible task. So agreed to shake hands on a draw.
Kerala had posted 457 in their exhaustive first innings. When play resumed today, Gujarat were well in command of their destiny at 429/7. They trailed by just 28 runs, with Jaymeet Patel, the overnight half-centurion, and Siddharth Desai, his trusted lieutenant, in the middle. But Kerala rewrote the script by dismissing the remaining three batters for just 26 runs. The Gujarat innings ended at 455.
The first to fall was Patel, stumped brilliantly by Mohammed Azharuddeen off Aditya Sarwate's bowling. Azhar, who hit a record-breaking 177 not out in Kerala's first innings, arguably emulated his heroics with the bat by timing the removal of the bails.
The Kerala camp was jubilant because they had caught the big fish. But the match was still on as all Gujarat needed was 22 runs more to snatch a precious lead. Kerala leaked a boundary in between as nervousness crept in. But Sarwate, one of the two guest players on the side, lived up to the expectations again by trapping Desai leg before. The initial appeal was for a bat-pad catch at silly point, but there was no edge. However, the ball tracker revealed the ball crashing into the leg stump, pitching in line; and the Kerala players jumped around like a pack of schoolboys.
Priyajitsing Jadeja joined Arzan Nagwaswalla as Gujarat hoped to grind out 10 more runs. But they couldn't as Nagwaswalla was caught in the most incredible manner, when a hard pull bounced off Salman Nizar's helmet at forward short leg and was caught in the slips by Sachin.
Brief scores: Kerala 457 in 187 overs (Mohammed Azharuddeen 177 not out, Sachin Baby 69, Salman Nizar 52, Arzan Nagwaswalla 3/81, Chintan Gaja 2/75) & 114/4 in 46 overs (Jalaj Saxena 37 not out, Rohan Kunnummal 32, Siddharth Desai 2/45) drew with Gujarat 455 in 174.4 overs (Priyank Panchal 148, Jaymeet Patel 79, Aarya Desai 73, Jalaj Saxena 4/149, Aditya Sarwate 4/111)