HanumaVihari’s monumental effort (180 not out) and his double century stand (229) for the third wicket with captain Ajinkya Rahane (87) enabled Rest of India set a challenging target for Ranji champion Vidarbha in the Z.R. Irani Cup at the VCA stadium here on Friday.
Riding on Vihari’s century and half-centuries from Rahane and Shreyas Iyer, Rest of India declared its second innings at 374 for three which meant Vidarbha needed 280 runs to defend its crown. At stumps on the penultimate day, the host had reached 37 for one.
On a challenging pitch which needed loads of patience and technical expertise to survive, it was an appropriate response from Vihari, who was willing to graft and systematically wear down the threat of Vidarbha spinners with elegant and adventurous shots.
For Vihari the sweep — both conventional and reverse — was the productive shot which he often essayed against the spinners and he wasn’t averse either in coming down the track to play the inside out shots to pick up boundaries.
In the first session. during which the batting was less precarious as in the previous three days, Vihari began positively with a boundary off Sarvate and played a few forcing shots to dominate the bowling.
Vihari lofted Whakare over long on to bring up his second century of the match and became only the second batsman after Shikar Dhawan to score centuries in both innings in Irani Cup. He now has scored centuries in three consecutive innings in the competition which is another rare feat.
His captain Rahane was also assured in the middle but played second fiddle to the more dominating Vihari. Rahane’s footwork against spinners was exemplary and he played a few pleasing shots on both sides of the wicket. Rahane looked set for a century but a rare lapse in concentration saw him stepping out for a big shot against Sarvate and miss the ball to be stumped by Wadakar.
The situation was tailor made for Shreyas Iyer (61 not out) who put the tiring attack to sword. The Mumbai batsman raced to his fifty by playing the big shots and gave his captain the luxury of declaring the innings well before he had anticipated.
Ankit Rajpoot cleaned up Faiz Fazal with an inswinger in the opening over to give his team a great start. However, R. Sanjay and Aditya Taide played sensibly under pressure and took the score to 37 without any further loss.
The scores:
Rest of India — Ist innings: 330.
Vidarbha — Ist innings: 425.
Rest of India — 2nd innings: Mayank Agarwal c Kale b Wakhare 27, Anmolpreet Singh c Wakhare b Sarvate 6, Hanuma Vihari (not out) 180, A. Rahane st Wadkar b Sarvate 87, S. Iyer (not out) 61; Extras (b-8, lb-2, nb-2, w-1) 13; Total (for three wickets decl in 107 overs) 374.
Fall of wickets: 1-25, 3-46, 3-275.
Sarvate 39-7-141-2, Gurbani 8-1-36-0, Thakur 6-1-33-0, Wakhare 18-2-60-1, Karnewar 26-7-62-0, Sanjay 1-0-8-0, Taide 9-24-0.
Vidarbha — 2nd innings: F. Fazal b Rajpoor 0, R.Sanjay (batting) 17, A.Taide (batting) 16; Extras 4 (b-4); Total (for one wkt in 16 overs) 37.
Fall of wicket: 1-0.
Rest of India bowling: Rajpoot 4-0-10-1, Tanveer Haq 2-0-9-0, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 6-1-13-0, Chahar 4-3-1-0 .
