Rajat Patidar on Saturday continued from where he had left on day three, slamming the third century of Madhya Pradesh’s first innings in the Ranji Trophy final against Mumbai at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
With chants of ‘RCB, RCB’ from the crowd, Patidar remained unbeaten on 120 at lunch, taking Madhya Pradesh to 475/6 in 152 overs, taking a first-innings lead, which currently stands at 101 runs. Coincidentally, exactly a month ago, Patidar slammed a whirlwind 54-ball 112 for RCB against Lucknow Super Giants in IPL 2022 eliminator at Kolkata.
Patidar, resuming from an overnight score of 67 on day three, began with a flick through mid-wicket off Mohit Awasthi. Mumbai tried to unsettle Patidar by banging the ball into the pitch, but with the bounce not much, Patidar was easily able to pull through mid-wicket twice.
After Madhya Pradesh began to take the first-innings lead, Mumbai bounced back as Awasthi took out captain Aditya Shrivastava, followed by Tushar Deshpande sending Akshat Raghuvanshi’s off-stump on a walk and Shams Mulani getting a reward for a persistent line and length by trapping Parth Sahani lbw.
After swiveling a pull-over fine leg, Patidar reached his second century of the season with a punch through a deep point and acknowledged the applause for him with the raise of a bat. Post reaching the three-figure mark, Patidar wowed everyone with his impressive punches off the pacers and late cut-off off-spinner Tanush Koitan.
With Saransh Jain looking solid with a couple of boundaries and Patidar looking strong, Madhya Pradesh is firmly in control of the final.
Brief Scores: Madhya Pradesh 475/6 in 152 overs (Yash Dubey 133, Rajat Patidar 120 not out; Mohit Awasthi 2/83, Tushar Deshpande 2/96) lead Mumbai 374 all out in 127.4 overs (Sarfaraz Khan 134; Gaurav Yadav 4/106) by 101 runs.
