NAGPUR: Ganesh Satish's exhibition of batting on Thursday would be a learning experience for any youngster. It showed patience at the beginning, and measured aggression towards the end. In between, he constructed his unbeaten 148-run knock with elegant glances and drives along with intense square-cuts and pulls, all played under pressure. Satish lifted Vidarbha and pushed Tripura to the wall in the last 2 sessions on Day 3.
After conceding a 35-run lead to Tripura, Ganesh (142; 198b, 18x4, 1x6) took Vidarbha to 348 for 6 at stumps on the third day of Ranji Trophy match at Civil Lines stadium. The centurion and his 172-run partnership with Akshay Wadkar (88; 117b, 8x4, 1x6) was instrumental in taking the lead to 313.
Resurrecting Vidarbha from 79 for 3, and igniting Vidarbha's hopes for an outright result looked a herculean task. But Ganesh Satish and Wadkar did it by raising the run-rate when that was the only option.
Before lunch, Vidarbha's run-rate was less than 3. From there, both Satish and Wadkar brought all their experience into play and scored at a rate of 5+ runs per over. Courtesy their union and Apoorv Wankhade (25 off 26b), Vidarbha managed 269 runs in 52 overs in the last 2 sessions, of which 146 runs came in the third session. As the Vidarbha trio went all out, Tripura became so defensive that they were forced to keep 8 fielders on the fence towards the end of day.
When both Satish and Wadkar were setting up a big onslaught early in the post-lunch session, Tripura did not realize that they were in for severe punishment. They kept bowling one line on the off and occasionally on the stump, and both Wadkar and Satish creamed it at will.
If Wadkar showed different shades of square-cuts and square-drives, Satish displayed glance and cover drives consistently that stole Tripura's thunder. When Satish was going strong, it looked like all bowlers were bowling to the centurion's plan.
Satish completed his half century with a pull shot off spinner Sridam Paul in the over before Tea. In the next couple of overs, Wadkar hit a powerful square-cut that pierced backward-point and short-point fielders, both specially kept for his cut shots, to reach his half-century.
When runs were flowing like water, Wadkar got cleaned up while going for a sweep off left-arm Parvez Sultan. Satish continued to bisect gaps and his softest of late cut in the 71st over took him to his 11th century for Vidarbha and 17th overall.
Earlier in the morning, Yash Thakur (20-7-44-5) and Aditya Sarwate (25.3-5-86-4) took the remaining three wickets within the first 4 overs of the day. Thakur added a wicket, while Aditya added two to his overnight figures. It is Thakur's maiden 5-wicket haul of First Class cricket.
Tripura have taken concussion substitute for their opener Bikram Kumar Das, who was hit between his neck and head on Atharva Taide's shot. The ball hit Das and popped up, and was caught by Paul.
BRIEF SCORES: Vidarbha 264 and 348/6 in 79 overs (Ganesh Satish 142 batting; Parvez Sultan 3/96) vs Tripura 299 in 95.3 overs (Sudip Chatterjee 83; Yash Thakur 5/44). Vidarbha lead by 313 runs
