Defending champions register their first win this season, courtesy Sumit Narwal and Ishant Sharma
Defending champions register their first win this season, courtesy Sumit Narwal and Ishant Sharma
NEW DELHI: Sumit Narwal, one of those rare players crossing over to play for Delhi from a neighbouring state, bucked another trend when he forced the bat to dominate play for a brief period in the low-scoring Ranji Trophy Elite Super League group A match against Orissa.
The former Haryana player struck a courageous 66 not out coming in at number eight, when more accomplished batsmen could not even sniff a half-century on the green-top at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium. In the team primarily as a bowler, he also grabbed three important wickets as Delhi scored a 52-run victory in less than two days to keep themselves in contention for the knock-out stage.
The 26-year-old resurrected the home side after they were struggling at 49 for seven in their second innings, effectively just 47 ahead with three wickets in hand. Narwal added a crucial 34 runs for the eighth-wicket with Pradeep Sangwan (19), 20 for the next with Ishant Sharma (5) and 27 for the last wicket with Parvinder Awana (1) to help set a challenging 149-run target.
On a pitch that made the novice and the experienced look the same, Narwal managed to settle in, and just when the Orissa bowlers seemed to run out of steam, made a counter-charge that helped take control. Narwal batted close to two hours, hitting four fours and as many sixes off 75 balls. He took three sixes off seamer Sukanta Khatua in the same over — a huge one straight into the stands behind the sight screen, followed by hits over square-leg and mid-wicket.
Narwal then dismissed opener Bikas Swarup Pati, Niranjan Behera and Pravanjan Malik. Virender Sehwag took a lovely catch to his right at first slip to get him the first wicket of Pati and then Narwal produced two lovely incoming deliveries to castle Behera and trap Malik leg-before wicket.
Ishant Sharma too was among wickets, claiming a maiden 10-wicket haul, his four-wicket effort in the second innings adding to his seven scalps in the first. Used judiciously by skipper Sehwag, he helped wrap up the match in fading light to finish with 11-51.
This was the maiden win for Delhi in five matches. They overtook Orissa (9) and have 11 points with matches to go against Saurashtra and Rajasthan.
Delhi coach Vijay Dahiya was happy that the gamble of asking for such a pitch had paid off.
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