Bihar's Sakibul Gani made headlines on Friday (February 18), when he became the first-ever player to score a triple century on his First-Class debut in the ongoing match against Mizoram. The 22-year-old struck 56 boundaries in his colossal 341-run knock to spur Bihar to a humungous 686/5 dec. Meanwhile, Babul Kumar was no less as he was also all guns blazing in his unbeaten 229-run knock. Mizoram have a task cut out and are now 9/1 at the end of 3 overs as the Day 2 progresses at the Jadavpur University Campus 2nd Ground in Kolkata.
Sakibul surpassed the previous record of Ajay Rohera who smashed 267 on his debut match for Madhya Pradesh back in 2018.
The Motihari-born Sakibul paired with Babul to achieve another feat of stitching third highest partnership for the fourth wicket in First-Class cricket. Together they conjured 538 off 756 balls to register their names in the list which is led by VS Hazare & Gul Mahomed (577 runs) and CL Walcott & FMM Worrell (574* runs).
Sakibul also scored a century in the last edition's Vijay Hazare Trophy.
It remains to be seen how the Mizoram batters would respond after their bowlers were made to toil hard by Bihar’s in-form batting pair over the last one and a half days. Bihar will be keen on winning this game now having scored a huge total in the first innings.
On Day 1 of the Ranji Trophy on Thursday (February 17), Ajinkya Rahane scored a century for Mumbai in the match against Saurashtra.
Delhi batter Yash Dhull also registered a ton on his first-class debut against Tamil Nadu in Guwahati.
The Ranji Trophy would be held in two phases and now it has been confirmed that the pre-Indian Premier League (IPL) phase would run from February 10 to March 15. The post-IPL-phase would run from May 30 to June 26. The Ranji Trophy this season would see 64 matches being played across 62 days.
There are eight Elite Groups and one Plate Group. There would be four teams in Elite Groups and six teams would make up the Plate Group. One team from each Elite Group will qualify for the quarterfinal stages. The lowest-ranked of the eight qualified teams will have to play a pre-quarterfinal with the top team from the Plate Group.
