NAGPUR: Right on first day, the placid track on which Vidarbha were batting had thrown hints of the match not yielding an outright win. The batters did what was needed from them to secure 3 points from first innings lead.
Their key middle-order bat Ganesh Satish slammed career-best 275 and executed the plan to perfection. The marathon effort was well-complemented by Aditya Sarwate (47-20-79-6) in the last two days as they suffocated Maharashtra into conceding lead.
Vidarbha grabbed crucial three points from a drawn game in the elite group 'G' match of Ranji Trophy on Sunday. With this result, Vidarbha are in contention for the knockouts.
Maharashtra began at their overnight score of 273 for 6 on Sunday. They played 44 overs on the last day before Vidarbha bundled them out for 328 and enforced a follow on. They reached 69 for 4 in the second essay when both the skippers decided to shake hands in Sultanpur, Gurgaon.
Sarwate broke Maharashtra back with a testing line around the off-stump. The left-arm spinner bowled in tandem with senior offie Akshay Wakhare (45-10-104-2). Between them, the spinners bowled 92 out of 146 overs.
Putting an insurmountable score - 570 for 5 declared -after winning the toss, Vidarbha never looked back. On the other hand, Maharashtra paid the price of being over-defensive. Despite sending Vidarbha openers within the first hour of the match, they removed slips and were bowling with just a gully in place off pacers, who bowled 64 overs.
Their approach made it clear that they were banking on their outright win with a bonus point over Assam in the last match and were here for maximum 3 points and to avoid an outright defeat.
Their plan backfired as Satish and Akshay Wadkar (146 n.o) creamed them for more than 10 hours. If their 288-run union kept Maharashtra on the field for more than 5-and-half sessions, Sarwate and Wakhare gave more trouble by choking runs with at least 4 fielders around their bat.
