Vidarbha defend Ranji title ,Aditya Sarwate takes 11

Vidarbha won the 2018-19 Ranji Trophy by beating Saurashtra by 78 runs in the final at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur. Vidarbha found a hero in Aditya Sarwate, who finished with six wickets in the final innings, and with eleven wickets in the match to steer Vidarbha to the domestic title.

After Kamlesh Makvana and Vishvaraj Jadeja had patched together a 33-run stand for the sixth wicket Aditya Sarwate Provided the much-needed breakthrough to the team.

Akshay Wakhare wasn't too far behind, finishing with three wickets in the fourth innings and with seven in the game. He followed up Sarwate's strike of Makwana with Prerak Mankad's wicket in the next over, doing so in the middle of a long spell that saw him opening the bowling alongside Umesh Yadav, the latter conceding four runs in four overs to keep the pressure on.

The last two wickets put up 24 runs, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja being at the helm with 17 off 56 balls but it was too much to ask from the lower-order against a motivated bowling line-up on a fifth-day pitch. The finale defeat means Saurashtra have now lost all the three Ranji Trophy finals they have been a part of.

Brief scores: Vidarbha 312 (Akshay Karnewar 73*, Akshay Wadkar 45; Jaydev Unadkat 3-54) & 200 (Aditya Sarwate 49, Mohit Kale 38; Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 6-96) beat Saurashtra 307 (Snell Patel 102, Jaydev Unadkat 46; Aditya Sarwate 5-98) & 127 (Vishvaraj Jadeja 52; Aditya Sarwate 6-59, A