BENGALURU: The unheralded Yash Dubey and Shubham Sharma made the Indian domestic cricket’s biggest stage their own with well-crafted centuries as Madhya Pradesh took a giant leap towards its maiden Ranji Trophy title here on Friday.
Mumbai’s first-innings score of 374 looked reasonably good on the second day, but Dubey (133 off 336 balls, 14 fours) and Shubham (116 off 215 balls, 15 fours, 1 six) added 222 runs for the second wicket to propel MP to 368 for three at stumps on Day Three. MP needs only seven runs to take the decisive first-innings lead and unless it suffers a collapse in the fourth essay, the title is its for the taking.
Dubey and Shubham took the sting out of the Mumbai attack with some stubborn batting, which was straight out of coach Chandrakant Pandit’s play book, as 245 runs were scored on the day. No.4 Rajat Patidar, who was one of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s heroes in the final few matches of the Indian Premier League 2022, then used his confidence to strike an unbeaten 67 (106 balls, 13 fours).
At close of play, Patidar was alongside captain Aditya Shrivastava (11 batting off 33 balls, 1 four). The M Chinnaswamy track did not show any signs of wear and tear, with the bright morning sunshine only helping the MP batters to settle down.
Mumbai left-arm spinner Shams Mulani (40-4-117-1) delivered too many loose balls while pacers Dhawal Kulkarni (21-3-51-0) and Tushar Deshpande (24-8-73-1) were also below-par as they consistently bowled at drivable lengths in the first session.
Dubey and Shubham managed 30 boundaries between them, but what stood out was their running between the wickets. The duo ran 76 singles during the double hundred plus stand. Save Armaan Jaffer missing a regulation catch from Shubham, Mumbai hardly created any wicket-taking chances. However, pacer Mohit Avasthi (20-5-53-1) could be credited for bowling one channel throughout.
After completing his hundred, Dubey repeated Sarfaraz Khan’s celebration of thigh thump and pointing the index finger towards the sky. The celebration was more about driving home a point for Sarfaraz, who regularly sledged the duo. After Shubham was caught behind off Avasthi and Dubey was sent back by Mulani, Patidar and Shrivastava accumulated 27 runs for the unbroken fourth wicket. Dubey and Patidar had collected 72 runs for the third wicket, which had piled more misery on Mumbai.
BRIEF SCORES: Final: Mumbai 374 vs Madhya Pradesh (1st innings) 368/3 in 123 overs (Y Dubey 133, Shubham 116, R Patidar 67*)
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