Ranji Trophy final: Gurbani, Jaffer shine as Delhi, Vidarbha share honours

Vidarbha's Rajneesh Gurbani celebrates his hat-trick against Delhi

Indore, December 30: Wasim Jaffer brought into play his years of experience as he guided Vidarbha to 206 for four with an unbeaten half-century after seamer Rajneesh Gurbani scythed through Delhi's lower-order for a hat-trick in the Ranji Trophy final here on Saturday.

At stumps on the second day, Jaffer was batting on 61 off 120 balls and Akshay Wakhare was yet to open his account, as Vidabha trailed by 89 runs.

Resuming on 271 for six, in-form seamer Gurbani rocked seven-time winners Delhi by removing three batsmen in as many balls in the second morning.

The victims at the Holkar Stadium included centurion Dhruv Shorey, making Gurbani only the second man to claim a hat-trick in the final of India's premier domestic competition. Tamil Nadus B Kalyanasundaram was the first to achieve the feat against Mumbai in 1972/73.

On 123 overnight, Shorey laced his innings with 21 boundaries before his team was all out for 295. Delhi lost their last four wickets for only five runs.

A day after a rather subdued outing, Gurbani found his mojo back as the 24-year-old ripped through the shaky defence of Vikas Mishra, Navdeep Saini and Shorey off successive deliveries before knocking over Kulwant Khejroliya, to cut short Delhi's innings.

This season's most prolific opening duo of skipper Faiz Fazal (67) and Sanjay Ramaswamy (31) started the second session from where they had left, adding 51 runs, before Akash Sudan sent Ramaswamy's two stumps flying for Delhi's first breakthrough.

That brought Jaffer in the middle but, playing in only his second first-class game, Sudan dealt Vidarbha a body blow when the medium pacer had Fazal caught behind after the batsman. He faced 101 balls scoring 10 boundaries.

Veteran Ganesh Satish (12), coming off a crucial second- innings half-century in the semifinal against Karnataka, did not last long and was trapped in front of wicket by Saini.