Published: Sep 12, 2016, 01:26 PM (IST)
Edited: Sep 12, 2016, 09:06 PM (IST)
Hello and welcome to CricketCountry’s live cricket blog and live cricket updates post of the Duleep Trophy 2016-17 final. Here you will get all the live cricket updates of Day Three of the match between India Red and India Blue. India Red have an upper hand going into the Day Three of the Duleep Trophy Final as they have posted a mammoth total in first innings and then declared on Day T20 inviting India Red to bat in the last session. It turned out to be a good move from India Blue skipper Gautam Gambhir as his strike bowler responded to the call and took 2 wickets before the end of play on Day Two. India Red are currently on 16 for 2 with Shikhar Dhawan and Yuvraj SIngh on strike. ALSO READ: IND Blue vs IND Red, Live Streaming, Duleep Trophy 2016 Final, Day 3: Watch online match telecast
Shikhar Dhawan will be in high spirits as he is retained in the Indian squad to play against New Zealand in the upcoming three-Test series starting on September 22. Dhawan is currently batting on 14 form 25 balls whereas skipper Yuvraj is yet to get off the mark after facing 26 balls. He is finding it tough to tackle fast-bowler Pankaj as he has taken 2 for 12 from 4 overs so far. Dhawan will be determined to take forward his innings and pull India Red out of danger of a batting collapse. His innings will be crucial as India Red need 477 runs more to avoid follow-on.
Gambhir will not be happy as he did not get selected in the Indian squad despite performing well in Duleep Trophy all along. Gambhir was consistent in the tournament scoring one half-century after another and sharing partnerships with Mayank Agarwal. Though, he will be hopeful for the future and take India Blue to a win in the first ever Duleep Trophy tournament played with ‘pink ball’.
However, Cheteshwar Pujara’s hardwork paid off as he was retained in the squad. Pujara has been consistent in the tournament having scored a century and a double century in consecutive matches. Pujara and Sheldon Jackson shook India Red with their appetite for big score with superlative unbeaten knock of 256 and 134 respectively on Day 2. India Blue piled up a mammoth score of 693 for 6 leaving no scope for India Red to breathe on Day 2 of Duleep Trophy. However, the pressure was pretty much witnessed on India Red as they lost early wickets in the form of the opening batsmen with Pankaj Singh’s sharp first successive deliveries. At the end of Day 2, the Red’s were 16 for 2. Pujara held his grit and the day belonged to him who is knwon for scoring many such double-centuries.
He reached this milestone facing 363 balls hitting 28 boundaries on the way. In the exact way he found the perfect partner Sheldon Jackson. He took over the role for most part of the day with two huge sixes and smashed 15 boundaries to reach his score of 134 off 204 deliveries. Jackson continued his run for centuries scoring another one in this game. For the fifth wicket, both the Saurashtra batsmen added 243 runs since Dinesh Karthik was unable to stay on the crease for long and was dismissed for 55.
Captain Gautam Gambhir was successful to rattle the opposition with mammoth score on the board. On a flat deck where the skipper would have reckoned that his spinners would come into play was in for huge disappointment. India Red’s Amit Mishra ended with figures 2 for 171 while young chinaman bowler Kuldeen Yadav ended with 1 for 214. Both gave away too many runs in 85 overs bowled amongst them.
On Day 1, Pujara completed his 10,000 First-Class (FC) runs en-route his 33rd FC ton. Playing for India Blue against India Red in the final of the Duleep Trophy 2016-17, Pujara came out to bat at his normal position No.3. Prior to the match Pujara had from 129 matches 9981 FC runs with 32 hundreds. Pujara struck an unbeaten 111* runs from 164 balls to help India Blue reach a commendable score of 362 for 3 on Day 1. Pujara reached his 33rd FC ton in just 153 balls, which included 12 four’s. This is also his second century in this edition of Duleep Trophy 2016-17.
The duo added runs at an average of four runs per over. Pradeep Sangwan and Nathu Singh, who was the star at one moment, could not get any wickets due to constant wear and tear of the ball. However, Mishra finally got hold of Jackson, until then Blues were already past the 600-run mark. Gambhir tried his luck bringing Ravindra Jadeja early and it did work, but he was unable to bring fifty at the end of the innings fell for the trap of Mukund. By then Pujara had already reached 250. After that, Gambhir decided to declare the innings at 168.2 overs. Mukund got a delivery from Pankaj that cut back and kept low to wrap him on pads. Sudeep hardly moved his feet to another incoming delivery to be played on.
On Day 2, a very interesting incident took place. A small group of teenage girls were ready to beat the heat. Asmita, Aryanka, Surbhi and Priya haven’t just come to watch an otherwise mundane Duleep Trophy game. They have come all the way to the interiors of the national capital to support their hero and icon Gautam Gambhir. Although Gambhir was out on Saturday, that didn’t deter the 18-year-olds to carry a 20-feet-long banner that read ‘Bring back Gautam’, standing under scorching afternoon sun. It was learnt that after watching the youngsters standing in this searing heat, Gambhir told groundstaff to provide them with water bottles. He couldn’t have possibly met them as ACU rules wouldn’t have allowed him to interact with unknown people during the course of the match.
Squads:
India Blue: Mayank Agarwal, Gautam Gambhir (c), Baba Aparajith, Suryakumar Yadav, Karn Sharma, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Sheldon Jackson, Parvez Rasool, Mohit Sharma, Pankaj Singh, Krishna Das, Abhimanyu Mithun, Siddhesh Lad, Karaparambil Monish, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja
India Red: Srikar Bharat(wk), Abhinav Mukund, Sudip Chatterjee, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Yuvraj Singh(c), Nitish Rana, Akshay Wakhare, Kuldeep Yadav, Pradeep Sangwan, Ishwar Pandey, Nathu Singh, Ankush Bains, Anureet Singh, Abhimanyu Mithun, Shikhar Dhawan, Stuart Binny, Amit Mishra
