Offie Rishav Raj (4/49) and left-arm spinner Anukul Roy (3/42) bowled in tandem to help Jharkhand defeat Tamil Nadu by an innings and 114 runs in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match played at Coimbatore on Saturday. In the first innings, the cream of the hosts batters failed to negotiate the visitors fast bowlers and they caved in to some disciplined spin bowling by the Ishan Kishan-led side in their second essay.
C Andre Siddarth was the only Tamil Nadu batter who showed some pluck to make a brilliant 80 and in the process delayed the inevitable. For a while, he got some support from M Shahrukh Khan, who made 37 off 66 balls. Both Andre & Shahrukh added 100 runs in 26.5 overs for the sixth wicket to test the patience of Jharkhand bowlers. Eventually Shahrukh Khan fell leg before to Anukul Roy.
Andre tried his best to play out the day, but he ran out of partners. Andre's 80 came off 180 balls and he spent 244 minutes in the middle. Tamil Nadu were short of a player as B Sachin could not bat due to illness. "Very happy, very happy with the result. Glad to get full points (seven)," said an elated Sunny Gupta, coach of Jharkhand. "The main reason for victory was that it was a complete team effort. It was not a single performance that helped us register a win. Everybody bowled well. First innings, all the fast bowlers did the job. In the second innings, spinners came in and chipped in a bit to trouble the TN batters,'' he added.
Before the match, Jharkhand did not expect to have such a big win and bag seven points. "No, we never thought that we would get such a big win in the first game of the season. Tamil Nadu is a strong side at home. So we thought whoever played better consistently would win. We wanted to play our brand of cricket (positive) and plan better and importantly ensure that our plans are executed by the players. Everything fell in place and glad we won," insisted Sunny. "But on Friday, when we got a big lead, we spoke at the team meeting that if we apply pressure on Saturday we can push for an outright win. Thank god our spinners were spot on and ensured that we won," he revealed.
Sunny Gupta revealed that solid preparation and match practice helped his boys come up with a creditable show against a strong team like Tamil Nadu. "Before the match we had a small camp. But what really helped us were the practice games where we had match simulation. First we had practice games against Bengal at Kalyani. Then at Rajkot against Saurashtra. These matches helped us prepare for the season ahead and fine tune the boys in areas where they needed to improve," said Sunny Gupta.
