Rajat Patidar’s ton puts Madhya Pradesh on verge of Ranji Trophy title

Bengaluru: Rajat Patidar stamped his class with an authoritative century to put Madhya Pradesh on the cusp of their historic Ranji Trophy triumph against 41-time champions Mumbai on a rain-hit fourth day of the summit clash here on Saturday. Havens opened up minutes before the tea break, and Madhya Pradesh finished their first innings at […]

Bengaluru: Rajat Patidar stamped his class with an authoritative century to put Madhya Pradesh on the cusp of their historic Ranji Trophy triumph against 41-time champions Mumbai on a rain-hit fourth day of the summit clash here on Saturday.

Havens opened up minutes before the tea break, and Madhya Pradesh finished their first innings at 536 soon after resumption with a game-changing lead of 162 runs, courtesy Patidar’s superb 122, that had as many as 20 boundaries. Four hundreds have been scored by batters from either side but none oozed more class and competence than Patidar’s, who was in a league of his own when it came to regal drives on both sides of the wicket.

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At stumps, Mumbai erased some of the deficit, reaching 113 for 2 with Prithvi Shaw (44 off 51 balls) and Hardik Tamore (25 off 32 balls), promoted up the order, showing some positive intent but throwing away their wickets in desperation for quick runs. Shaw was dismissed with a classic plan of bowling wide outside the off-stump and he finally chased one from Gourav Yadav straight into cover’s hands.

With 95 overs left on the final day, there is very little chance of Mumbai winning this match unless they score around 320-plus runs in 50 overs (including Saturday’s overs) and set a target of 150-odd for MP with at least 45 to 50 overs to get the 10 wickets.

The wicket isn’t showing any signs of crumbling and hence a chance of an MP collapse in the fourth innings doesn’t look imminent at the moment. Especially, knowing that they have a first innings lead, MP will like to down the shutters from hereon as ends will prove the means.

When the fourth day started, MP needed seven more runs to get the first innings lead but what was more important was for Patidar to play at least one session and he did that with minimum fuss which could now prove to be decisive in the context of the game.

Patidar smashed seven more boundaries following his 13 on the third day and by the time he was out for 122 off 219 balls, Madhya Pradesh’s lead had gone over 100 runs and the sullen faces of the Mumbai players said it all. A poker-faced Chandrakant Pandit, who had throughout the four days, sat in one corner of the dressing room, can now afford a wide grin as even a miracle can”t turn things around for his “home state”.

Brief Scores: Mumbai 374 & 113/2 in 22 overs vs MP 536 in 177.2 overs (Rajat Patidar 122, Saransh Jain 57; Shams Mulani 5/173, Tushar Deshpande 3/116).