Auqib Nabi became the third fastest bowler to 60 wickets in a season in the Ranji Trophy's 92-year history. (PTI Photo)
Auqib Nabi had some unfinished business at hand in Hubballi. He had promised himself a session on Friday to wrap up the job in Karnataka first innings.
He stuck to his word on Day Four – two sessions after crafting a dream spell that propelled him closer to an India cap and Jammu and Kashmir to a historic Ranji Trophy triumph in their first attempt.
With just a day left in the final, J&K were 186/4 in their second innings, all but batting Karnataka out of the game after dismissing them for 293 to take a mammoth 291-run lead on first innings.
There was the bittersweet feeling of not getting a steady go at Mayank Agarwal, the rearguard centurion who had ushered Karnataka to 222 for five overnight. During a jaw-dropping act lasting nine overs across both ends on Thursday afternoon, Nabi constricted KL Rahul, Karun Nair and R Smaran. But Agarwal, the ageing warhorse, got away.
The Karnataka opener faced only four deliveries from Nabi in his first spell, but a trail of breadcrumbs was still left for Nabi to work on.
His conspicuous forward movement helped Agarwal ward off the imminent threat of seam movement. Agarwal then based his knock on a series of cuts, charged drives and flicks against the spinners, belting a hundred in his first Ranji Trophy final appearance.
“We are hopeful that we can get them out in a session tomorrow,” the wily Nabi had said after the third day, insisting that “it would have been good [if I got more balls at Agarwal in the spell]. But he was moving forward to negate the swing.”
Heading into the fourth morning, Agarwal stood defiant between J&K and a massive first-innings lead, likely the major differentiator in this slow-burning contest. That was until Nabi served another reminder of his outstanding repertoire.
The home crowd forced into deafening silence with his five-wicket haul, Nabi (23-7-54-5) exemplified why his bowling brains have made him an exciting red-ball prospect. Hitting lines that force batters into mistakes isn’t as easy as Nabi makes it look.
The lengths and late outward movement off the deck had troubled all the batters, and Agarwal required a recalibrated line of persistence.
Opening the attack with a 69-over-old ball on Friday, the right-arm seamer brought wicketkeeper Kanhaiya Wadhawan up to the stumps before the fourth ball as Agarwal resumed with sprightly feet. He would get another over in before preparing for a spell with the second new ball.
Auqib Nabi brought up the wicket-keeper to Mayank Agarwal off the fourth ball on Day 4. (Express Photo by Lalith Kalidas)
In the 82nd over – his 18th of the innings – Nabi’s first loosener was smeared to the deep cover fence by No.8 Vidhaydhar Patil. When he was expecting truer lengths with the harder ball, Nabi served Agarwal just that – with a spicy twist. In his 20th over, Nabi shortened his length in the channel, opening up Agarwal for the first time since his first delivery the previous afternoon. He found a meaty outside edge this time, which burst through substitute wicketkeeper Dikshant Kundal’s low right glove on its way to the boundary.
A pre-emptive pull would be timed superbly in the next over, but Agarwal had returned to his swift press forward from the crease. Nabi immediately found the exact coordinates and zoomed in on the perfect spot at a good length. An exaggerated shuffle to the left, along with the forward motion, caught Agarwal (160) in line of the middle stump, clipping his pads and Karnataka’s wings together.
Nabi burst to his seventh five-wicket haul of the season soon after, pinning Shikhar Shetty LBW in a frame that has been commonplace since last season. A 60th scalp made him only the third fast bowler to record as many wickets in a season in the 92 years of Ranji Trophy cricket.
Karnataka threatened with two wickets in the three overs before lunch after folding for 293, but a 302-run lead had decisively pushed Devdutt Padikkal’s men to a corner by then.
Walking in at number four, J&K captain Paras Dogra fronted another short-ball examination, this time with a tighter-knit cordon surrounding the 22 yards. Dogra was eventually castled after 90 minutes of the second session by Prasidh Krishna, the India pacer who arguably had his best First-Class performance in this match.
Frustrations swelled by late evening when unorthodox J&K opener Qamran Iqbal moved into the nineties, much to the dismay of the Karnataka seamers. He was the eleventh-hour replacement for the injured Shubham Khajuria, and Iqbal’s wrong-footed shot-making would rile up seamer Vijaykumar Vyshak’s temper and speed three days too late.
With just three sessions of play left, Iqbal (94*) shored up the lead to 477 by stumps with an off-driven boundary off the last ball of the day from Prasidh.
Karnataka’s pacers and batters increasingly appear second-best to Nabi, the nifty paceman from Baramulla who could soon become India’s silken-smooth operator with the red ball.
Brief Scores: J&K 584 and 186/4 in 57 overs (Qamran Iqbal 94 batting) lead Karnataka 293 (M Agarwal 160, A Nabi 5/54) by 477 runs
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