In search of their first win of the Ranji Trophy 2022-23 season, Services would have been confident of wrapping their fourth game early on Day 4 on a chilly morning at the Palam Air Force Ground, Delhi and even walk away with a bonus point, but as it turned out Services had to sweat it out in the cold for a while before registering a five-wicket win against Puducherry.
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Puducherry, who were playing their away game had conceded the first innings lead and were 128/6, trailing by 65 at stumps on Day 3 and considering the kind of pace attack Services possess and the weather conditions around, nobody gave the visitors much of a chance.
And Services did get a good start in the morning session with the early wicket of Sridhar Ashwath, leaving Puducherry tottering at 155/7.
Arun Karthik, Krishna Pandey perform rescue operation
Debutant Krishna Pandey then joined forces with Arun Karthik for the late-order resistance. While the experienced Karthik held the fort at one end to notch up his 10th FC hundred (130 off 202 balls), Pandey had not debutat jitters and chipped in with a 132-ball 64.
“I’m happy that I was able to put up a decent show and took the game in the fourth innings. Getting the first hundred of the season is always a great feeling,” Karthik said in an exclusive chat with CricketNext, adding “The idea was to take the game to the last session. I think if we would have batted an hour extra then the game might have been different.”
“It was my debut so I was a bit nervous. But I scored a fifty so that feels good actually. I guess, I missed out the trick there. If I would have played till Tea then the situation might have been different,” added Pandey.
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But Left-arm spinner Rahul Singh provided the breakthrough with the wicket of and soon after the Puducherry innings folded for 313, handing Services a target of 64.
Services suffer hiccups before Rahul provides resistance
Chasing a paltry total, it was certainly a game, set, match kind of a situation but no, the Puducherry still had some fight left in them. They made some brilliant use of the conditions in the afternoon and picked five wickets in the second session.
“When I was batting, I knew there was something for the spinners. The wicket was keeping low, the odd ones were turning and I just communicated that to the captain. Unfortunately, 60 odd was pretty low,” Karthik said later on.
Diwesh Pathania who was also one of the batters to get dismissed in the second innings said that the side became a bit complacent after getting a small total and that’s why suffered a mini-collapse.
“I guess, we became a bit complacent seeing that the target was small. Also, we tweaked the batting lineup as well and our main batters didn’t really come out to bat. So, probably that’s why we lost some wickets,” he said.
“Actually, we were not really under pressure when the wickets went down as we had sent a couple of tail-enders up the order who eventually got dismissed and then there was a run-out. And see, a wicket or two go down in this situation so it was pretty normal,” said Rahul Singh Gahlaut who followed his first innings ton with an unbeaten 33 off 33 and took the side over the line and walked away with the Player of the Match award.
Pathania’s Personal Milestone
Services’ bowler Pathania achieved a personal milestone during the match against Puducherry after he scalped his 200th FC wicket. The pacer expressed delight and said that he never really thought that he would be picking up so many wickets.
“I’m really feeling good about the milestone. Honestly, I never really thought that I would pick those many wickets but it’s actually a really good feeling,” he said.
“I always focus on making a valuable contribution for the team. My mind set is that I win matches for my side,” he added.
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