Ranji Trophy: Harshal Patel’s swing gives Haryana wings

Medium-pacer Harshal Patel took four wickets to limit Jharkhand’s gallop, speahearded by Virat Singh's patient hundred.

Virat Singh, who scored his second First-Class hundred and batted for 471 minutes, was the rock of Jharkhand’s innings. Bhupendra Rana

JHARKHAND’s worst fear came true during the morning session on Christmas day. It wasn’t entirely their fault as the first hour at the Motibaugh ground is always a tricky one but Jharkhand wouldn’t have prepared for the extent of the damage. They collapsed from 228 for 3 to 228 for 6 as Harshal Patel swung and seamed it around but they rallied back through lower-order’s pluckiness to get a lead of 87. Though Haryana ended the day with a lead of 59 with 8 wickets in hand in their second gig, they have to do all the running.

“Pehla ghanta batsman ka test hota hai yahan aur uske baad bowler ka,” (the first hour tests the batsmen, rest tests the bowler) former India pacer Munaf Patel would tell you about the conditions here.

Jharkhand found it out rather early in the piece. They lost their most set batsman Ishan Jaggi at his overnight score of 77, bowled by Patel. Ishan Kishan hurried out and received a short one first-up. He tried to defend but the ball took the inside edge, popped down to his left leg and landed on the stumps. Jharkhand had lost two wickets without any addition to the overnight score. More drama was around the corner. In his next over, Patel induced an inside edge from Kaushal Singh that was snapped up by the keeper and Haryana were well and truly back in the game. Jharkhand had lost three wickets without any addition to the score. In fact, in the next 45 minutes they managed only five runs more.

Shahbaz stands up again

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It was Shahbaz Nadeem who stood up to be counted yet again when his team needed the most. After finishing with seven-wicket haul in Haryana’s first innings, Nadeem came handy with the bat too. He added 57 invaluable runs with Rahul Shukla for the seventh wicket.

Later, Shukla added 46 runs for the ninth wicket with Syed Quadri which enabled Jharkhand get a handy 87-run lead. Shukla was trapped by leg-spinner Amit Mishra as Jharkhand finished their first innings on 345 for 9. With number eleven Ashish Kumar ruled out of the game, Jharkhand played with ten men. Harshal Patel finished with four for 46 with three coming on Sunday.

It was a good comeback from Haryana who had dominated the proceedings on the third day. Their opener Nitin Saini and Shubham Rohilla looked solid and batted aggressively too. Until Rohilla pushed forward to defend Quadri but got an edge which was swallowed at short leg with Virat Singh taking a superb one-handed catch. Soon, a well-set Saini went back to defend Quadri but missed the line and lost his stumps to leave Haryana on 91 for 2. The two middle-order batsman Shivam Chauhan and Chaitanya Bishnoi ensured Haryana’s next batsman would wait in the dressing room with his pads on.

A lot will be on stake for Haryana when they come out to bat again on the fourth day. Most of the wickets have tumbled in the first couple of hours in the past three days. If the recent memory doesn’t suffice, they would do well to remember the words of Munaf Patel.

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Brief Scores: Haryana: 258 and 146 for 2 in 50 overs (Nitin Saini 41, Shubham Rohilla 43, Chaitanya Bishnoi 33 not out) vs Jharkhand 1st innings: 345 all out (Virat Singh 107, Ishank Jaggi 77; Harshal Patel 4/46, Yuzvendra Chahal 3/85).

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