As Ayush Badoni and Ayush Doseja were in the midst of an effective partnership, as afternoon fell and conditions for batting became perfect at the Feroz Shah Kotla grounds on Monday, Delhi looked like they may have recovered enough to force their opponents into a tricky chase.
After spending two days on the back foot and conceding the first innings lead to Jammu and Kashmir, Badoni and Doseja both brought up quickfire fifties as the home side’s batting was showing the intent to pick up quick runs and create a match out of this. What succeeded was a collapse that seemingly came out of nowhere and left them teetering on the brink of a defeat.
Badoni was sent packing after his 73-ball 72, thanks to a fine running, diving catch from Vivrant Sharma at deep square-leg. Inexplicably, from there, Delhi would lose their last six wickets after adding just 35 more runs, the last five of them all fell during a 25-ball period right after tea. It left the hosts’ with a lead of 178 runs when far more were there for the taking, and J&K raced through the last hour to finish at 55/2 at stumps, leaving them 124 runs away from a first-ever victory over Delhi in the Ranji Trophy.
Unlike in the first innings, where a fine spell of swing bowling from Auqib Nabi precipitated a collapse from the hosts, the second innings wickets largely fell to spin. Among the J&K tweakers, left-armer Vanshaj Sharma would end up being the pick of the bunch, taking six wickets for 68 runs, including four of the last five.
Born and brought up in Jammu, this a familiar setting for Vanshaj, who moved to Delhi when he was eight. He is currently settled in Dwarka, where he has grown up playing cricket at school level alongside some of his competitors here.
The 22-year-old isn’t a first-choice tweaker for his state side, he usually does not play at home where conditions are seamer-friendly. He was the third choice for J&K in this game, who decided to only play two fast bowlers. Playing only his fourth First-Class game, he would notch his best figures, but insisted that the key was to keep things simple when there was not much assistance from the pitch.
“Sometimes, the ball is staying low but otherwise it is coming onto the bat quite nicely. Badoni and Doseja were showing that when they were batting,” Vanshaj told reporters here on Monday. “So we decided to bowl it slow. It is mostly flat but the odd ball is turning, and to find that, I kept bowling it slow. It ended up working well.”
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In essence, Delhi’s batters only had themselves to blame. The J&K batters would prove as much as opener Qamran Iqbal went after the bowling in the 11 overs he faced prior to the close of play, hitting six boundaries which came against both pace and spin.
The hosts’ performance was indicative of recent form, with their squad choices disjointed and performances inconsistent, especially with the ball. They have gone without a win in their three games this season, the last two of them being at home, and the last one seeing them lose the first innings lead to Puducherry too. On Tuesday, they will need a drastic overnight change in conditions, or a dream spell of bowling to turn their season around.
Brief scores: Delhi 211 & 277 all out in 69.1 overs (Ayush Badoni 72, Ayush Doseja 62; Vanshaj Sharma 6/68, Lotra 3/73) vs Jammu and Kashmir 311 & 55/2 (Qamran Iqbal 32 n.o).
