NAGPUR: Vidarbha pacers made the most of seaming conditions and left Madhya Pradesh on a sticky wicket by sending the top-3 batters home for just 11 runs, and half of the side for 102. However, they were stopped from making further inroads as Rajat Patidar (121; 236b, 20x4) rescued Madhya Pradesh with a tenacious century on Day 1 of their Ranji Trophy match in Indore on Tuesday.
Sent into bat by Vidarbha captain Faiz Fazal, MP managed 234 for 6 at stumps.
Patidar and Saransh Jain (45 n.o; 134b, 8x4) dealt well with the pacer trio Lalit Yadav (21-7-37-2), Nachiket Bhute (22-6-68-1) and Yash Thakur (18-5-35-2), who bowled 61 overs between them, and stitched a brilliant 126-run partnership for the sixth wicket.
After losing the top-3, Patidar, one of the top performers in the last previous season when MP won the Ranji Trophy title under coach Chandrakant Pant, and skipper Aditya Shrivastava (34) put on 74 runs for the fourth wicket to revive the innings. They batted for 202 balls negating all Vidarbha batters and pulled their side out of trouble.
The best thing Patidar and his two partners Jain and Shrivastava did was that they saw off the challenging overs from left-arm orthodox Aditya Sarwate and off-spinner Akshay Wakhare.
Vidarbha finally heaved a sigh of relief when they got a breakthrough in the penultimate over of the day when centurion Patidar was caught plumb on Lalit Yadav's bowling.
Brief scores: Madhya Pradesh 234 for 6 in 90 overs (Rajat Patidar 121, Saransh Jain 45 n.o; Lalit Yadav 2-37, Yash Thakur 2-35) vs Vidarbha
