Madhya Pradesh Avesh Khan celebrates a wicket during the Ranji Trophy semifinal match against Vidarbha in Nagpur on March 2, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Avesh Khan-led Madhya Pradesh pace bowling unit hit right lengths on a pitch that offered enough carry to bowl out Vidarbha for a meagre 170 on day one to gain control of their Ranji Trophy semifinal match in Nagpur on March 2.

Avesh (4/49) was the pick of MP bowlers, while receiving good support from Kulwant Khejroliya (2/38) and Venkatesh Iyer (2/28).

Madhya Pradesh reached 47 for one in their first innings at close, and trail by 123 runs.

The VCA Stadium deck wore such fine green tinge as MP employed spin for just 2.4 overs in a total of 56.4 overs they bowled on the day.

Left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya, who dismissed last man Umesh Yadav, did the spinner’s duty for a brief period.

Other spinners in their ranks like offie Saransh Jain remained spectators of the proceedings.

Vidarbha’s feeble fight came through Karun Nair, who made 63 (105 balls, 9×4).

India pacer Avesh gave MP a fine start to the match when he uprooted the stumps of opener Dhruv Shorey (13).

Vidarbha lost wickets at regular intervals from that point and their biggest partnership was a 36 between Atharva Taide (39, 63b, 8×4) and Aman Mokhade (13, 75 balls) for the second wicket.

It came in almost 16 overs but the home side failed to capitalise on all the hard work.

Taide, who made a gritty hundred against Karnataka in the quarterfinals, snicked Iyer to stumper Himanshu Mantri who took a lovely tumbling catch behind the first slip.

It brought Karun, Vidarbha’s highest run-getter so far this season, to the middle and he played a fine innings filled with those typical drives and cuts.

But the right-hander did not find support from the other end as Avesh dismissed a stubborn Mokhade.

The hosts soon lost Yash Rathod, bowled by Iyer, and skipper Akshay Wadkar in the space of five runs to slip to 106 for five.

The catch Yash Dubey took at gully off pacer Khejroliya to oust Wadkar was a stunning one. He made a low-dive to his left to pouch a screamer as Wadkar tried to steer the ball from outside the off-stump.

Vidarbha’s hopes of reaching at least 200 was dashed when Karun dragged a Khejroliya delivery to his stumps while attempting a pull.

However, the Vidarbha bowlers were not as accurate as their MP counterparts as the visiting batters saw off the day without any alarm.

The lone jarring note was the dismissal of Dubey who feathered an edge off Umesh to Wadkar behind the stumps.

A resolute Madhya Pradesh is faced with the daunting task of taming Vidarbha in their home ground, which the hosts have turned into an impregnable citadel this season. File
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Riding on the high of taking down heavyweight Karnataka in the quarterfinals, Vidarbha will look to deny Madhya Pradesh its second final in three years when they face off in the first Ranji Trophy semifinal at the VCA Stadium (Civil Lines) here from Saturday.

Aditya Sarwate and Harsh Dubey triggered a Karnataka batting meltdown on the final day, and led Vidarbha into the final-four after five years. MP, meanwhile, scraped a narrow four-run victory against Andhra to continue its bid for a second title under Chandrakant Pandit.

The colossal First-Class coach, Pandit, pitted against his former side Vidarbha, which he led to back-to-back titles in 2017/18 and 2018/19, serves an enticing sub-plot to the contest.

Himanshu Mantri and Yash Dubey have set the tone at the top for MP. The duo has notched up 500 runs each this season and contributed three hundred-plus opening-wicket partnerships. But its collapse from 123 for no loss to 159 for seven in the first innings against Andhra was symptomatic of its middle-order frailties, which have been masked by all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer.

Venkatesh has managed to salvage his side from precarious situations with aplomb, scoring 528 runs at a strike rate of 82.28. The southpaw will have a favourable match-up against the left-arm off-spin of Sarwate, Vidarbha’s leading wicket-taker this season with 37 scalps, and will again be tasked with holding things together for MP.

For Vidarbha, Atharva Taide’s coming-of-age century against Karnataka assured that the 23-year-old can fill in the big shoes of Faiz Fazal. But its imports, Dhruv Shorey and Karun Nair, will shoulder the major share of the side’s batting hopes.

Vidarbha could have benefitted from Jitesh Sharma’s firepower in the lower-middle order, but the wicketkeeper-batter has featured just once in eight games so far. In his stead, captain Akshay Wadkar’s six half-centuries have been valuable.

Kumar Kartikeya’s 32 wickets proved crucial when MP clinched the crown in 2022. The left-arm off-spinner has managed 38 this season already and is MP’s leading wicket-taker. With help from pacers Avesh Khan and Kulwant Khejroliya, MP could pose a threat to the home team’s batting.

Teams (from):

Vidarbha: Atharva Taide, Dhruv Shorey, Yash Rathod, Karun Nair, Akshay Wadkar (wk/captain), Mohit Kale, Aditya Sarwate, Harsh Dubey, Yash Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Aditya Thakare, Faiz Fazal, Akshay Wakhare, Sanjay Raghunath, Rajneesh Gurbani, Lalit M Yadav, Siddhesh Wath, Jitesh Sharma, Darshan Nalkande, Shubham Dubey.

Madhya Pradesh: Yash Dubey, Himanshu Mantri (wk), Harsh Gawli, Shubham S Sharma (captain), Venkatesh Iyer, Sumit Kushwah, Saransh Jain, Anubhav Agarwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Avesh Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Amarjeet Singh, Aditya Shrivastava, Mihir Hirwani, Rishabh Chouhan, Aryan Pandey.

Match starts at 9.30 AM.