Late wickets give Vidarbha edge

NAGPUR: Sitting on the either side of the sight screen, two coaches-Usman Ghani and Biju George gave opposite reactions as soon as Amol Jungade castled Rohan Prem with a beauty in the last over of the day. While Vidarbha coach Ghani was ecstatic, his Kerala counterpart had a wry smile on his face. The ball had hardly seamed on a placid VCA wicket but the one that Jungade bowled came in sharply to disturb the furniture when Prem offered to shoulder the arms.
For the larger part of the day-88 overs to be precise-it was other way around when George's ward were going along slowly but steadily. However, the last seven deliveries in which Kerala lost two wickets- that too well-set Prem and Robert Fernendez - pushed them on the backfoot in the Ranji Trophy Plate Group tie at the Vidarbha Cricket Association's Civil Lines stadium. The second new ball did all the damage for Kerala. From 246-2 in the penultimate over, they ended the day at 252-4, still needing 306 for the innings lead and 155 to avoid the follow-on. At stumps, smiles refused to go away from Vidarbha players' faces. They knew they could afford to celebrate Shiv Sunder Das' 34{+t} {+h} birthday.
Kerala's approach of scoring slowly and keeping wickets in hand for the last day certainly backfired on them. They started off very well when skipper VA Jagadeesh (88, 152b, 11x4) and Abhishek Hegde (76, 190b, 8x4) put up a 156-run opening partnership. Their bowling figures won't suggest how well Vidarbha bowlers have bowled. At lunch, Kerala were going strong and nothing seemed to be working for the hosts. The edges were either not carrying as they were short or going over the fielders. Left-arm pacer Shreekant Wagh and debutant Shailesh Bhondekar bowled their heart out while Amol Jungade bowled a nagging line. Still the Kerala openers were managing to find the boundaries.
Just after the lunch, Jagadeesh stepped down to left-arm spinner Ravi Jangid, who cleverly bowled wide and Aniruddha Chore removed the bails in a flash. It was just a kind of break Vidarbha needed. Skipper Sairaj Bahutule then took the centre stage and blocked the runs. He invited Hegde to hit over the top which the batsman obliged only to be holed on at mid-on. It was a great display of leg spin on a wicket where he was hardly getting any turn.
While Kerala scored 114 runs in the first session itself, the same amount of runs came in the other two sessions. The visitors put lot of pressure on themselves by batting defensively on a flat track. Fernandez, who was their prolific run-getter, surprisingly went too much into the shell. He crawled to 26 off 150 balls. Left-hander Prem (47, 87b, 7x4), however, was more composed of the two. He was stroking the ball nicely and hit some glorious shots on both sides of the wicket. His backfoot punch off Bhondekar showed why he had played for the India U-19 six years ago. He looked disappointed and dejected after getting out as he was well aware of the fact that a set batsman would be required to face the second new ball when Vidarbha seamers will come out with all cylinders firing on the last day. However, the wicket is still good to bat on and from here on, it would be case of holding the nerves.