Jaydev Unadkat, fresh off his excellent bowling performance against Bangladesh at Mirpur in the second Test, returned to Ranji and made a huge impact. He scored a hat trick in the first over, leaving Delhi’s Group B rivals in disarray on Tuesday.
Delhi lost 7 wickets in a run-short contest. However, the lowest first-class score of 6 was not recorded by ‘The B’s’ team against England in an 1810 official match.
Young Hrithik Shokeen (68) helped them to score 133 runs before Saurashtra scored 184 runs in 46 overs. The visitors then decided to play with two specialists bowlers.
Unadkat took wickets on the third, fourth, and fifth deliveries to become the first player to score a first-over double in Ranji Trophy’s 88 year-old history.
Vinay Kumar from Karnataka was the first to achieve the fastest Ranji hat-trick. He did it in just two overs — the first and the third.
Unadkat’s hat trick victims were opener Dhruv Seay, Vaibhav Raal, and young Delhi captain Yash Dhull. All of them departed for duck.
Sources close to Delhi team management were actually curious as to why, on a pitch with moisture, Ayush Badoni was allowed to open his debut.
Dhull, Rawal, and Badoni don’t have what it takes to take on Unadkat.
Unadkat, 31, had already added two more wickets by the end of his second over to complete his 21st five-wicket run in first-class cricket.
Unadkat continued to cause havoc and finished Tuesday with career-best figures 8/39 in 12 overs.
After being bundled out for only 133, Delhi was left with a difficult task. They had been missing a lot of regular bowlers from their playing XI because of injuries. Saurashtra opener Harvik Dasai was able to expose their toothless approach and lead the hosts to 184 runs for 1. This is a 51-run advantage.
