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Madhya Pradesh have one hand on their maiden Ranji Trophy title after Rajat Patidar’s classical 122-run knock on Day 4 of the final at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. MP outbatted 41-time Ranji champions Mumbai with a mammoth first innings score of 536 which kept their fielders and bowlers toiling hard in the middle for a little over 14 hours.
Patidar's dominating display
MP added 168 runs to their overnight score of 368/3. Mohit Avasthi took the first wicket of the day by getting rid of skipper Aditya Shrivastava. Former Under-19 World Cup 2022 winning member Akshat Raghuwanshi did not last long at the crease and got bowled by Tushar Deshpande. Shams Mulani joined the party as well and got rid of Parth Sahani.
Patidar found the perfect partner in Saransh Jain. The in-form Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batter got to his century. The 29-year-old went on to score 122 runs from 219 deliveries before getting bowled. He hit as many as 20 boundaries in a knock that put MP in a strong position in the final. After Patidar's wicket, Saransh batted with the tail and got to his half-century. Mulani cleaned up the tail to wrap up MP's innings. The left-arm spinner took a fifer as MP posted 536.
Attack, attack and attack
After getting a taste of their own medicine, Mumbai openers walked out to bat with the intent to score quickly. Prithvi Shaw was not accompanied by Yashasvi Jaiswal as the latter was out of the field for a couple hours due to injury.
Shaw scored 44 runs from 52 deliveries including three fours and two sixes before getting out to Gaurav Yadav. He shared a 63-run partnership with wicketkeeper-batter Hardik Tamore (25). After the wickets of openers Armaan Jaffer and Suved Parkar batted with a similar template. At the end of Day 4, Mumbai had 113 runs on the board. They still trail by 49 runs.
Mumbai need a miracle
While the approach from Mumbai for the final day is very clear, they will face an uphill task to post a challenging total on the board. So far, the pitch has not deteriorated to an extent that it makes difficult for batters to survive in the middle. MP will back themselves to win the final on the basis of first innings score until and unless they suffer a collapse of epic proportions.
