Ravindra Jadeja spins India Blue to Duleep Trophy title

After setting Yuvraj Singh’s men a mammoth target of 517, India Blue had their spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Karn Sharma bagging eight wickets between them to shoot Red out for 161 in 44.1 overs. 

Jadeja led the way with five wickets for 76 while Karn took three wickets for 33 runs. 

India Blue added 41 runs on the fifth day morning and declared at 179 for five, giving them an overall lead of 516. 

The pitch was still good for batting, but there was palpable assistance for spinners, as Kuldeep Yadav (3-62) found during Blue’s innings. 

India Red were off to a horrid start when Abhinav Mukund suffered a blow to his shoulder in the first over of the innings off Pankaj Singh. The ball seemed to rear off one of the cracks around the good length to hit the batsman. 

Abhinav, after receiving treatment, carried on but had to eventually retire hurt in the second over, with Sudip Chatterjee joining Shikhar Dhawan in the middle. 

Dhawan and Chatterjee added 43 runs before Jadeja sent Chatterjee back and Parvez Rasool took Dhawan’s wicket, for 29, in successive overs to reduce India Red to 43 for 2. 

Skipper Yuvraj and Gurkeerat Singh Mann consolidated for a bit but Jadeja struck twice in the 26th and 28th overs to remove Yuvraj and Stuart Binny, the latter for a duck, leaving Gurkeerat to carry on the struggle with the lower half of the batting order. 

But Gurkeerat’s knock of 39 – the best for the innings – ended soon after, when he was stumped smartly by Dinesh Karthik off Karn, his dismissal leaving Red 106 for 5, in effect 106 for 6, with Abhinav sitting out. 

From then on it was only a matter of time before India Blue wrapped up the proceedings. 

BRIEF SCORES: India Blue 693/6 decl (Cheteshwar Pujara 256*, Sheldon Jackson 134, Gautam Gambhir 94) & 179/5 decl (Mayank Agarwal 52, Kuldeep Yadav 3/62) bt India Red 356 (Stuart Binny 98, Amit Mishra 65, Ravindra Jadeja 5/98) & 161 (Ravindra Jadeja 5/76).