Ranji Trophy: Spinners take 10 wickets, Delhi bag seven points

On Day Four at the Kotla, the spinners Sharma and Sood, who picked up all 10 Gujarat wickets in the second innings, must have given Gautam Gambhir a lot of confidence.

Delhi can call on three seamers to deliver on wickets that favour the pace bowlers so having spinners, who can take wickets makes their attack look balanced.

Sood once again proved that he can restrict the flow of runs with his accuracy and variation in pace. His match haul of 10 for 93 will give him the confidence that spinners require to deliver the goods. On the other hand, Sharma has shown that he is the more attacking of the two. Having two spinners who complement each other is only an advantage.

Although, Sood has been the one performing the role of restricting the run-flow with Sharma attacking from the other end, the former succeeded in picking more wickets than him.

Sharma had two wickets to his name in the first innings and followed it up with another couple in Gujarat’s second innings as well.

Sharma, on Wednesday scalped the No.9 and 9 Gujarat batsman in space of just four deliveries in the 58th over. In the next over, Sood then added one more to the five-wicket haul he had completed on Tuesday.

“My job is to attack and Varun bhai’s job is to keep bowling at one spot. Our captain Gambhir bhai keeps talking to me and motivates me to get wickets. In the process I might get hit for runs but then I also provide important breakthroughs. In this game, bowling alongside Varun bhai was helpful as he was maintaining the pressure on the batsman and I was able to bowl much more freely,” said Sharma after the match.

If Sood is the more accurate of the two, Sharma is blessed with the ability to spin the ball sharply. In the last three games, Sharma has managed to pierce through the gap left by the batsman and has deceived them with his line. Nothing could be more satisfying for an off-spinner than to castle a left-hander attempting to defend him on the front foot.

Sharma got Dishant Yagnik the same way in the previous game.

He then had Arjit Gupta, a right-hander, bowled while he invited the Rajasthan middle-order batsman to drive him through cover.

A good thing for Delhi is that they can continue with this bowling combination in the rest of the matches. Lahli usually is a pacers’ paradise but two seasons back when Delhi lost a close match against Haryana, leggie Amit Mishra was the wrecker-in-chief.

Brief scores: Gujarat 166 & 150 (J Karia 37, S Gohel 37; V Sood 6/43, S Sharma 4/52) vs Delhi 425.