Published: Feb 26, 2016, 12:37 PM (IST)
Edited: Feb 26, 2016, 02:52 PM (IST)
The 10th wicket pair of Siddhesh Lad and Balwinder Sandhu have etched their names in the history books as their 103-run stand in Ranji Trophy Final 2015-16 against Saurashtra is the highest ever partnership for Mumbai for the 10th wicket. They surpassed the record of Ashok Mankad and Sushil Sanghvi, who put on an unbeaten 87-run stand against Gujarat in September 1967. Mankad and Sanghvi remained unbeaten on 51. In the ongoing match however, Siddesh Lad was dismissed 12 short of his ton, but the No. 11 batsman Balwinder Sandhu remained unbeaten on 34. Courtesy of this partnership, Mumbai took a lead of 136 runs over Saurashtra and will look to wrap up the match soon. Live Updates: Mumbai vs Saurashtra, Ranji Trophy 2015-16 Final, Day 3 at Pune
This is therefore the highest 10th wicket stand for Mumbai against Saurashtra as well. The previous best was 72 between Usman Malvi and Dhawal Kulkarni. The match ended in a draw, but it was Saurashtra, who got the first innings lead after they managed to score a mammoth 643 in their first innings.
Earlier, Shreyas Iyer’s fourth ton of the season had taken Mumbai to a good position in the match. But the 40-time champions lost a few quick wickets at the end of Day Two and one felt that Saurashtra had the advantage at the end of the day. But the way Sandhu and Lad played, Saurashtra’s hopes of winning this match from here may have been dashed. Saurashtra also added to their woes as the dropped many catches, giving the likes of Lad and Iyer multiple chances and they managed to cash in on it.
