NAGPUR: Vidarbha’s promising left-arm spinner
Harsh Dubey delivered when his team was struggling to stay afloat in the
Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy
.
Stand-in skipper Dubey scored fifty on Saturday and wreaked havoc with his 7-wicket haul on Sunday as Vidarbha thumped Hyderabad by 177 runs in their own den on Day 3 of the four-day match.
The Dubey’s heroics with the ball (4-36 & 7-55) and a second innings fifty propelled Vidarbha to 22 points. Vidarbha, with two more matches to play, are now in the top-five of combined Elite Group ‘A’ and ‘B’ points table. The top-five teams from the combined group willl make it to the quarterfinal stage.
It was all about Dubey and his gutsy show from the start. After Vidarbha posted just 233 in the first innings, the spinner gave Vidarbha first innings lead with a 4-wicket haul.
Then, promoting himself, Dubey top-scored with 53 runs to give his side massive lead. After setting up 358-run target, Dubey made Hyderabad batters look completely clueless with his testing line on the off stump.
The rival batsmen were unable to deal with Dubey storm as seven batters got out to him. Hyderabad were bundled out for 180 with Mandar Mahale picking up three wickets from the other end.
Dubey, who captained the side after regular skipper was down with dengue, now has 32 wickets in his kitty. He is currently positioned in the top-5 of the leading bowlers of the tournament.
After taking 84 runs first innings lead, Vidarbha resumed the Day 3 at the overnight score of 247 for 7 and went on to set-up huge 358-run target for Hyderabad by managing 272 all out in 70.5 overs in the second innings.
In reply, Hyderabad openers began well. They posted 77-run opening stand at a snail’s pace but lost the ploy when Vidarbha allrounder Mandar Mahale (18-4-37-3) produced a straight one to catch M Pratyush (33) plumb in front of the wicket.
Mandar’s breakthrough gave an opening which was craftily exploited by skipper Dubey (20.2-4-55-7) with a match-winning spell. Dubey sent top-four out of five batters packing to dash all the hopes of the rival outfit. If Dubey and Mahale dominated with the ball, wicketkeeper Aniket Pande also did a good job behind the stumps by grabbing five catches.
BRIEF SCORESVidarbha 233 & (Overnight 247-7) 272 all out in 70.5 overs (Harsh Dubey 53, Mohd Faiz 48, Avesh Shaikh 44, Prerit Agrawal 37; Aniketh Reddy 6-84) beat Hyderabad 149 & 180 all out in 70.2 overs (Rishiket Sisodia 50, Vaishnav Reddy 46; Harsh Dubey 7-55, Mandar Mahale 3-37) by 177 runs.