Parth Bhut’s all-round performance drives Saurashtra into semi-finals
Partha Bhut’s all-round performance helped Saurashtra beat Punjab by 71 runs to enter the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy cricket tournament where they will face Karnataka. Chasing a target of 252 runs, Punjab started playing ahead of 52 runs on two wickets on the fifth and final day of the match but their entire team was dismissed for 180 runs. Bhut, who scored 111 in Saurashtra’s first innings and 51 in the second innings, took five wickets for 89 runs. This left-arm spinner took eight wickets in the match in this way.
He took three wickets for 114 runs in Punjab’s first innings. The pitch was helping the spinners and hence Saurashtra captain Arpit Vasavada used only three spinners in the second innings. Apart from Bhut, left-arm spinner Dharmendrasinh Jadeja took three for 56 while off-spinner Yuvrajsinh Dodiya took two for 35. Punjab started playing ahead of 52 runs for two wickets in the morning. Then he was 200 runs away from the target.
The Punjab batsmen, however, found it difficult to play the spinners due to the turn of the pitch. Punjab lost wickets at regular intervals. Bhut gave Saurashtra their first breakthrough in the morning by dismissing night watchman Siddharth Kaul (10). Dodiya dismissed yesterday’s second unbeaten batsman Pukhraj Mann (42) lbw. Captain Mandeep Singh played an inning of 45 runs but this could only reduce the margin of defeat. Mandeep gave Punjab hope by adding 49 runs for the sixth wicket with Anmolpreet Singh (26) but both of them returned to the pavilion within four runs to reduce the score to 160 for seven wickets. After this, Saurashtra did not take any time to dismiss the tail batsmen.
