After having ensured its ticket to the final following a 470-run first-innings lead, India Blue chose to bat again against India Green, and turned the remainder of the Duleep Trophy league match into a farcical exercise on Tuesday.
Having dominated every session so far of the match, Blue ended the third and penultimate day on 85 without loss, for an overall lead of 555 runs.
If the first two days were dominated by the Blue batsmen as the team reached a monumental 707, day-3 belonged to medium-pacers Abhimanyu Mithun and Pankaj Singh whose disciplined effort restricted Green to 237.
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Blue’s decision to give Karn Sharma the second over clicked as the leg-spinner castled opener M. Vijay in the fourth over.
He returned to pack off two tail-enders after the medium pacers had done most of the damage.
Only Parthiv Patel and skipper Suresh Raina could score half centuries, and lack of partnerships ensured that Green never really threatened to come even remotely close to Blue’s tally.
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Raina’s brisk knock ended when off-spinner Parveez Rasool beat his defensive bat and trapped him leg-before.
Raina could come in to bat only after the fall of the fifth wicket since he had not taken the field on Monday owing to a troubled heel.
It was Pankaj who sent back Robin Uthappa and Parthiv after both batsmen had looked well set while Mithun accounted for Jalaj Saxena, Shreyas Gopal and Ashoke Dinda.
Unlike the Blue batsmen who had shown immense application, the Green line-up failed to deal with some inspired bowling. The pressure of facing Blue’s huge first-innings tally also seemed to play its part, and the result was disaster for Green.
On Monday, Cheteshwar Pujara and Sheldon Jackson helped themselves to tons and Karn scored a half century to help Blue post the ninth-highest total in the history of the competition.
The scores: India Blue — 1st innings: Mayank Agarwal c Rajpoot b Dinda 161 (218b, 21x4, 1x6) , Gautam Gambhir run out 90 (193b, 10x4) , Cheteshwar Pujara b Shreyas 166 (280b, 24x4) , Siddhesh Lad c Saxena b Bumrah 1 (5b) , A. Mithun c Uthappa b Gopal 32 (44b, 4x4) , Dinesh Karthik c Parthiv b Dinda 48 (94b, 5x4, 1x6) , Sheldon Jackson c Rajpoot b Shreyas 105 (114b, 7x4, 5x6) , Parveez Rasool b Shreyas 25 (43b, 3x4, 1x6) , Karn Sharma lbw b Shreyas 57 (66b, 6x4, 2x6) , Mohit Sharma b Saxena 3 (8b) , Pankaj Singh (not out) 0 (1b) , Extras (b-7, lb-5, nb-7) 19; Total (in 176.3 overs) 707.
Fall of wickets: 1-212, 2-315, 3-320, 4-388, 5-496, 6-542, 7-580, 8-688, 9-707.
India Green bowling: Jasprit Bumrah 27-4-108-1, Ashoke Dinda 25-1-114-2, Ankit Rajpoot 20-4-52-0, Shreyas Gopal 37.3-1-173-5, Jalaj Saxena 34-4-11-1, Pragyan Ojha 31-3-119-0, M. Vijay 2-0-14-0.
India Green — 1st innings: M. Vijay b Karn 6 (16b, 1x4) , Robin Uthappa c Karthik b Pankaj 41 (45b, 8x4) , Jalaj Saxena c Karthik b Mithun 13 (20b, 3x4) , Saurabh Tiwary run out 26 (30b, 6x4) , Parthiv Patel lbw b Pankaj 55 (80b, 7x4, 1x6) , Shreyas Gopal c Karthik b Mithun 26 (56b, 4x4) , Suresh Raina lbw b Rasool 52 (43b, 8x4, 1x6) , Ashoke Dinda c Agarwal b Mithun 1 (6b) , Jasprit Bumrah c Gambhir b Karn 7 (35b, 1x4) , Pragyan Ojha lbw b Karn 5 (30b, 1x4) , Ankit Rajpoot (not out) 0 (5b), Extras (b-4, lb-1) 5; Total (in 61 overs) 237.
Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-37, 3-81, 4-90, 5-168, 6-168, 7-177, 8-210, 9-233.
India Blue bowling: Pankaj Singh 12-1-54-2, Karn Sharma 16-1-74-3, Mohit Sharma 10-3-32-0, A. Mithun 7-2-16-3, Parveez Rasool 16-3-56-1.
India Blue — 2nd innings: Mayank Agarwal (batting) 49 (94b, 6x4) , Gautam Gambhir (batting) 36 (62b, 3x4); Total (for no loss in 26 overs) 85.
India Green bowling: Ashoke Dinda 4-0-20-0, Jasprit Bumrah 6-2-12-0, Ankit Rajpoot 4-1-12-0, Pragyan Ojha 7-0-29-0, Jalaj Saxena 5-0-12-0.