Ranji Trophy: Vidarbha find Ishant Sharma too hot to handle

Nagpur: Ishant Sharma returned to competitive cricket with an impressive effort of 3/26 as Delhi restricted Vidarbha to 222 for six on the first day of their Ranji Trophy Group A match, in Nagpur on Thursday.

Ishant worked up good pace and bounce from the Feroz Shah Kotla strip after Gautam Gambhir opted to field. The lanky speedster bowled in four short spells and got wickets in three of those spells.

For Vidarbha, Faiz Fazal (55) and Subramanium Badrinath (44) added 89 runs for the third wicket in 38.4 overs. While they steadied the innings from 16/2 after Wasim Jaffer (0) was run out without playing a ball.

The other important partnership was 71 for sixth wicket between Aditya Shanware (41) and Jitesh Sharma (35 batting). However, the day was about Ishant showing that he is a class apart from other bowlers. While fellow paceman Pradeep Sangwan (2/34) barely got the ball to bounce above shin, Ishant was getting it to rear awkwardly. Ganesh Sathish got one that bounced and the resultant slash was taken by Vaibhav Rawal at third slip.

His second wicket was well set Fazal, who gloved it to Mohit Ahlawat behind stumps as it kicked up from length. Shanware at the end of the day got one that had shade extra bounce and moved away as Ahlawat took a simple catch.

It was Jitesh, whose cheeky shots got the score moving after Vidarbha were stuck for better part of the day.

Brief Scores: Vidarbha 1st innings: 222 for 6 (F Fazal 55, S Badrinath 44; I Sharma 3/26) v/s Delhi