New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS) Left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey rewrote the Vidarbha record books on Monday by claiming 9-53 to bowl out Madhya Pradesh for 209 on an eventful opening day of their Ranji Trophy match at the VCA Stadium in Jamtha.
Dubey became the first bowler from Vidarbha to claim a nine-wicket haul in an innings of the Ranji Trophy. The previous best figures for the side was Arun Ogiral’s 8-39 in 1967-68, which ironically came against Madhya Pradesh. Dubey is now the 30th bowler overall to take nine or more wickets in an innings in the Ranji Trophy.
It was Vidarbha all-rounder Nachiket Bhute, though, who made the first breakthrough by removing opener Yash Dubey. From there onwards, the innings belonged to Harsh. He opened his account in the 17th over and kept chipping away, leaving Madhya Pradesh at 64/5 in the 29th over.
Atharva Mahajan and Saransh Jain resisted with a 72-run stand. It lasted nearly 18 overs before Dubey returned to break it, and the lower order did not survive long after that. The last nine-wicket haul in the Ranji Trophy came from Gujarat’s left-arm spinner Siddharth Desai, who took 9-36 against Uttarakhand in 2024-25.
Monday’s spell adds to a big year for Dubey, who made his ODI debut against Afghanistan in June and took four wickets in two matches. He then toured Sri Lanka with India A, taking three wickets and scoring 59 runs across two innings. For Central Zone in the Duleep Trophy, he took eight wickets and made 27 and 24 against East Zone.
He has carried that form into the 2026-27 Ranji Trophy season, with 23 wickets in seven innings so far. Elsewhere, Karnataka’s Ritesh Bhatkal (5-35) and Shikhar Shetty (5-53) shared 10 wickets to bowl Assam out for 135 inside 49 overs in Guwahati. Rohan Patil then hit 89 off 87 balls, with 13 fours and a six, and added 129 for the opening wicket with Mayank Agarwal, who was unbeaten on 57, as Karnataka got a 45-run lead.
In Dharamsala, 20 wickets fell on the opening day. Rajasthan chose to bat and were shot out for 78, with Abhishek Kumar taking five wickets for Himachal Pradesh. Sahil Dhiwan replied with a five-wicket haul for Rajasthan, but Himachal still made 153 for a lead of 75.
Mayank Mishra took 6-57 as Uttarakhand bowled out Haryana for 153 after they elected to bat. In Chandigarh, Pradosh Ranjan Paul’s unbeaten 138 powered Tamil Nadu to 320/4 against the hosts. N Jagadeesan (52) and Baba Indrajith (51) also scored fifties.
Punjab recovered from 71/5 to reach 276/5 against Andhra, thanks to an unbroken 205-run stand for the sixth wicket between Salil Arora (111 not out) and Sanvir Singh (100 not out).
In Ahmedabad, Aarya Desai fell five short of a century as Gujarat crossed 300 against Kerala. He added 116 with Abhishek Desai, and after Gujarat slipped to 182/4, Urvil Patel (63 not out) and Vishal Jayswal (50 not out) put on an unbeaten 111-run stand.
Opener Dhruv Patel made 124 to lift Baroda to 269/6 in Kanpur. He added 88 with Shashwat Rawat (47) and 108 with Mitesh Patel (49) after Baroda were 54/2. His dismissal set off a late wobble, with three wickets falling on 249 in four deliveries across two overs.
Services captain Rajat Paliwal came in at number five with his side at 27/3 and made an unbeaten 111 to take them to 266 in 88 overs against Delhi at Palam. Snehal Kauthankar’s unbeaten 116 rescued Goa from 54/4 after they chose to bat against Bihar at home, as they ended day one at 288/6 in 87 overs.
At the CCI in Mumbai, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (78) and Sarfaraz Khan (55) struck half-centuries and captain Siddesh Lad made 47 as Mumbai reached 247/6 in 83 overs after being put in by Railways.
Sridam Paul’s 86 led Tripura’s fightback against Saurashtra as the hosts reached 219/7 at stumps at the MBB Stadium. Put in to bat after Saurashtra won the toss, Tripura slumped to 28/5 inside 19 overs. Paul then added 125 for the sixth wicket with wicketkeeper-batter Sentu Sarkar, who made 46.
Manisankar Murasingh (33) and Bikram Debnath (32) were unbeaten at the close, after Tripura had batted 74.3 overs. Parth Bhut was the pick of the Saurashtra bowlers with 3-52 in 19 overs, including two maidens. Chetan Sakariya took two wickets, while Yuvraj Dodiya and Sammar Gajjar claimed one each.
Abishek Porel hit 54 off 67 balls, with eight fours, for Bengal against Maharashtra after they were put in and slipped to 37/4. In reply to Bengal’s score of 143, Maharashtra reached 21/2 and trail by 122 runs.
–IANS
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