India Blue lifted the Duleep Trophy with a thumping 355-run win against India Red in the final of the tournament played under lights with the pink ball. The Gautam Gambhir-led team set the opposition a 517-run target on the final day after declaring their second innings early in the afternoon. Making most of the conditions, spinners – Ravindra Jadeja (five for 76) and Karn Sharma (three for 33) bowled the opposition out for 161 to claim the title.
Jadeja, who had run through the Yuvraj Singh-led team in the first innings, took his wickets tally in the match tally to 10 while Karn finished with five wickets from the game.
Earlier, India Blue declared their second innings on 179 for five after adding 40 runs to their overnight total in 10 overs. While Rohit Sharma remained not out on 32 after resuming his innings on 22, India Blue lost two wickets early in the afternoon. Ravindra Jadeja was run out for 17 while Sheldon Jackson departed handing a catch to mid-off off Kuldeep Yadav. Karn Sharma then joined Rohit in adding 17 runs to the total before the innings was declared with the lead of 516.
With the formidable task of scaling the mountain of runs in a minimum of 86 overs, Shikhar Dhawan opened the innings with Abhinav Mukund. India Red’s first setback came in the second over when Mukund retired hurt. The opener was struck near the shoulder in the previous over by a Pankaj Singh delivery. Sudip Chatterjee, who then took guard slogging Jadeja towards mid-off but Abhimanyu Mithun took the catch running in. With the team on 43, the left-hand opener was the next to be sent back for 29. The opener looking to defend, edged the Parvez Rasool delivery to the slips and Cheteshwar Pujara took a superb low one-handed catch diving to his left.
Yuvraj Singh and Gurkeerat then took the team to Tea at 49 for the loss of two wickets. However, in the ninth over of the second session, the India Red captain swung at a Jadeja delivery and was caught at deep mid-wicket. In the spinner’s next over, he had Stuart Binny trapped leg-before wicket leaving the team tottering on 98 for four. Eight runs later, Karn had Gurkeerat Singh stumped for 39 runs.
Amit Mishra was Jadeja’s fourth scalp in the innings. After the batsman nicked it to the slips, Cheteshwar Pujara took the catch to leave India Red 113 for the loss of six wickets. Few overs later, Karn drew an edge from Ankush Bains through to the wicketkeeper and castled Sangwan off the next delivery to bring his team within sniffing distance of a victory. The left-arm spinner then followed up with the wicket of Nathu Singh to wrap up the India Red innings on 161 for nine with opener Mukund retired hurt.
Brief scores:
Day 1 – India Blue 1st inn 362/3 in 90 overs (C Pujara 111*, G Gambhir 94, D Karthik 55*, S Binny 1/54, K Yadav 1/97)
Day 2 - India Blue 1st inn 693/6 decl. in 168.2 overs (C Pujara 256*, S Jackson 134, A Mishra 2/171); India Red 1st inn 16/2 in 9 overs (S Dhawan 14*, P Singh 2/12) Trail by 677 runs with 8 wickets in hand
Day 3 - India Red 1st inn 356/10 in 98.1 overs (S Binny 98, A Mishra 65, R Jadeja 5/95, K Sharma 2/85); India Blue 2nd inn 1/0 in 2 overs (M Agarwal 0*, G Gambhir 1*) Lead by 338
Day 4 - India Blue 2nd inn 139/3 in 35 overs (M Agarwal 52, K Yadav 2/47) Lead by 476 runs
Day 5 – India Blue 2nd inn 179/5 decl. in 45 overs (R Sharma 32*, K Sharma 12*, K Yadav 3/62); India Red 2nd inn 161/9 in 44.1 overs (G Mann 39, R Jadeja 5/76, K Sharma 3/33) lost by 355 runs.
Man of the Match: Cheteshwar Pujara
