Kerala Enters Ranji Trophy Final: Kerala on Friday entered the final of the Ranji Trophy for the first time by gaining a two -run lead in the first innings over Gujarat. Kerala has reached the finals for the first time after 68 years after making his debut in the leading domestic competition of Indian cricket. Now in the final, Kerala will face Vidarbha, who defeated Mumbai by 80 runs in the second semi -finals.
Gujarat needed only 29 runs to gain an lead in the first innings on the last day and the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy Champion team started playing with a score of 429 runs for seven wickets in the morning. Left -handed spinner Aditya Sarwate performed well under pressure and took three wickets to 455 runs in 174.4 overs. In this way the team missed out on reaching the final by two runs.
History …..
Kerala in the Ranji Trophy Final, for the First Time ..#Ranjitrophy #ranjitrophy2025 #Kerarackrick #Gujvsker #gujratcrickt #Mumbaicricket #MCA pic.twitter.com/jvkvsaewrr
– Ishita agarwal (@budbak_baniya) February 21, 2025
The visiting team was playing in the semi -finals for the second time only. He was disappointed with a 72 -run partnership for the eighth wicket on the fourth day between Jaymeet Patel (playing for 74 at 74 runs) and Siddharth Desai.
Kerala needed three wickets at the beginning of the day and to defend only 28 runs. Kerala made it to the semi-finals for the last time in 2018-19 after making Ranji debut in 1957. Sarwate’s successes were found in a quite dramatic way, including a catch, a tough decision of a stumping and a successful DRS review that turned the catch out decision to LBW.
First Kerala captain Sachin Baby left Jaymeet’s catch at the crease, then the Gujarat team was 23 runs away from the lead. But Jaymeet could not take advantage of this and was dismissed by 79 (177 balls, two fours) runs in the same over. The ball came out by touching the outer edge of his bat, Mohammad Azharuddin stumped the best and he pulled his foot out of the crease.
After several replays, the umpire finally called him out because when the bail was dropped, his foot was found on the line and the Kerala team was celebrating this wicket. Gujarat’s left -handed fast bowler Arjan Nagwaswala batted at number 10, transporting the ball of Akshay Chandran to the cover boundary, which was just 14 runs away from the team.
Kerala got the second success of the day when Gujarat was lagging behind by 11 runs. Sarwate dismissed Siddharth Desai, who was dismissed for 30 runs in 164 balls with the help of just one four. Desai reviewed the decision of the catch out. In ‘Ultra Age’, no ‘spike’ showed but ‘ball-tracking’ confirmed that the ball would be on the leg stump, causing the decision to be overturned and was out.
Nagwaswala and the last player Priyjitsinh Jadeja were trying and the Gujarat team was just eight runs away from the edge, when Kerala lost a chance. Jalaj Saxena had almost taken his fifth wicket because the ball touched the inner edge of Nagwaswala, due to which Gujarat was behind just two runs. But then the decisive moment came.
On the ball of Sarwate, Nagwaswala swing a vigorous swing and the ball hit Nizzar’s helmet on the short leg and went into Baby’s hands in the slip. Coach Ameya Khursia’s team drowned in celebrations, which confirmed a place in the historic Ranji final. For Kerala, Sarwate took 111 runs and Jalaj took four wickets for 149 runs. After confirming a place in his first Ranji final, Kerala batted easily in the second innings and scored 114 runs for four wickets in 46 overs in the second innings.
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(Tagstotranslate) Ranji Trophy (T) Cricket
