S Sreesanth was one of the 1,114 players that registered for this year’s auction of the Indian Premier League. Most of the people believed he would make a return to the league. But he was not there in the final list of 292 players.
The speedster from Kerala who turned 38 years on the 6th of this month is sure of returning to the league next year. His performance in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy is saying a lot about his form and consistency.
Here’s what all happened on the third day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
1. Railways vs Odisha – Elite Group C
Railways won the toss and elected to ball first.
Railways won their last encounter against Bihar by ten wickets. While Odisha lost their last match to Kerala.
Railways bowlers didn’t allow Odisha’s batsmen to play with a free mind. There was enough pressure on them since the first delivery. None of Odisha’s batsman could touch the half-century mark.
Ankit Yadav was the highest scorer for Odisha. He made 48 off 42 balls. Pradeep T took three wickets with an economy of 6.4.
Railways batsmen had a great day in the field. The openers made 87 runs for the first wicket. With the help from Shivam Chaudhary’s and Pratham Singh’s half-centuries, Railways won the game by 8 wickets.
2. Karnataka vs Bihar – Elite Group C
Bihar won the toss and elected to field first.
Ravikumar Samarth and Devdutt Padikkal played slowly in the beginning. But they held their wickets till the 30th over of the innings before Padikkal was dismissed for 97 runs.
Samarth then along with Krishnamurthy Siddharth toyed with the emotions of Bihar’s bowlers. Karnataka made 354 runs in 50 overs. All the bowlers from Bihar except the captain Ashutosh Aman bowled with an economy of more than 7.
In reply, Bihar’s 8 out of 11 batsmen were dismissed for a single-digit score. In the last match, this number was 7. S Gani made 37 off 75 balls. Bihar lost the match by 291 runs.
3. Kerala vs Uttar Pradesh – Elite Group C
Kerala won the toss and elected to field first.
Uttar Pradesh’s batsmen were on the receiving end of the rage of S Sreesanth. He dismissed 5 of UP’s batsmen and gave 65 runs in 9.4 overs. He achieved this feat after 15 years. His last fifer in a List A match came back in 2006.
Abhishek Goswami, Priyam Garg, and Akshdeep Nath made half-centuries for UP. UP was all out for 283 runs.
Amidst all the wickets falling at a regular interval, half-centuries from Robin Uthappa and Sachin Baby sealed the game for Kerala. Uthappa made 81 off 55 balls. Sachin made 76 off 83 balls.
Kerla won the match by 3 wickets.
4. Vidarbha vs Madhya Pradesh – Elite Group B
Madhya Pradesh won the toss and opted to bat first.
Aditya Shrivastava and Parth Sahani made 52 off 67 balls and 68 off 58 balls, respectively, for Madhya Pradesh. They ended the innings by putting 243 runs on the scoreboard.
Aditya Sarwate took 3 wickets and gave away just 39 runs from his quota of 10 overs.
Vidarbha’s batsmen managed to chase down this total in 48.5 overs, with Ganesh Satish being the highest scorer. He made 47 off 66 balls. Vidarbha won the game by 4 wickets.
5. Tamil Nadu vs Andhra – Elite Group B
Andhra won the toss and elected to field first.
Tamil Nadu’s batsmen could not repeat their last performance in this match. They were very far from the way they batted in the last match against Punjab.
They managed to score only 176 runs. Baba Aparajith was the highest scorer for them. He made 40 off 62 balls. Cheepurapalli Stephen and Shoaib Md Khan took 3 wickets each.
Ashwin Hebbar made 101 runs off 84 balls. He along with Ricky Bhui helped Andhra beat Tamil Nadu by 7 wickets. Bhui made 52 off 41 balls.
6. Jharkhand vs Punjab – Elite Group B
Jharkhand won the toss and elected to bat first.
Ishan Kishan, the hero of the last match, was bowled by Sandeep Sharma in the very first over of the innings. Utkarsh Singh made 51 off 78 balls. Shahbaz Nadeem made 45 off 40 balls. Both of them managed to take Jharkhand’s score to 217 runs.
Siddarth Kaul took 3 wickets for Punjab.
Abhishek Sharma made 56 off 48 balls. Mandeep Singh made 68 off 88 balls. Both of them provided Punjab support, which was enough to come out as a winner. But during the last part of Punjab’s innings, their batting started fluctuating. Punjab lost 6 wickets under 29 runs. Jharkhand won the game by 2 runs.
7. Baroda vs Tripura – Elite Group A
Baroda won the toss and opted to field first.
Tripura made 302 runs in 50 overs. Most of their batsmen contributed enough to help the team reach a competitive total. Udiyan Bose made 56 off 50 balls and he was the highest scorer for the team. The other batsman to hit a half-century was Bishal Ghosh. Ghosh made 50 off 61 balls.
Tripura dismissed the first three batsmen of Baroda by the 17th over of the innings. Vishnu Solanki along with Krunal Pandya handled the innings of Baroda. Solanki missed his century by 3 runs. The senior Pandya made 127 runs off 97 balls. Baroda won the game by 6 wickets.
8. Gujarat vs Goa – Elite Group A
Goa won the toss and elected to bat first.
Goa’s batsmen could not convert the start they gained in the initial part of their innings. Because of this, they fell short of the 200 marks and could only make 159 runs.
Hardik Patel bowled 10 overs, which included a maiden over. He gave away just 34 runs and took 3 wickets.
Both Priyank Panchal and Bhargav Merai made 57 runs for Gujarat. They helped Gujarat to chase the target in 27.4 overs and won the game by 8 wickets.
9. Hyderabad vs Chhattisgarh – Elite Group A
Chhattisgarh won the toss and opted to bat first.
Harpreet Singh made 63 off 99 balls. Ashutosh Singh made 51 off 81 balls. Both of them helped Chhattisgarh to put a total of 242 runs in 50 overs.
Mehdi Hassan took 3 wickets by giving away just 32 runs in 10 overs.
Tanmay Agarwal made 122 runs off 116 balls. The other opener, Tilak Varma, who made 60 off 78 balls and Himalay Agarwal, who made 49 off 36 balls supported Tanmay. Hyderabad won the game by 7 wickets.
