Jharkhand has made a strong move towards making it to the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals. Jharkhand posted a mammoth total of 769 for nine in their first innings on the second day of their pre-quarterfinal match against Nagaland at the Eden Gardens on Sunday. 17-year-old wicket-keeper batsman Kumar Kushagra played a brilliant innings of 266 runs while scoring a double century.
Kumar Kushagra took full advantage of Nagaland’s weak bowling, scoring 266 runs in 269 balls with the help of 37 fours and two sixes. Before him on Saturday, Virat Singh also scored a century of 107 runs. After this, Shahbaz Nadeem, who was part of Kavya Maran’s IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, also played an unbeaten 123.
Jharkhand’s team started playing ahead of 402 runs for five wickets today. By the end of the first day, Kushagra had scored 112 runs. This is the first first-class century of Kushagra’s career. Kushagra, who was part of the Indian Under-19 team during the 2020 tour of South Africa, completed a double century in 213 balls with a four off Imlwati Lemtur.
Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem also scored a career-best 123 runs in 223 balls with 14 fours and a six. He was bought by Lucknow Super Giants for 50 lakhs for IPL 2022. Kushagra and Nadeem added 166 runs for the seventh wicket. Earlier yesterday’s unbeaten batsman Anukul Roy was dismissed after scoring 59 runs. Thanks to these brilliant innings, Jharkhand scored 769 runs for the loss of 9 wickets by the end of the second day.
Khrivitso Kense brought some relief to Nagaland by dismissing Kushagra and Sushant Mishra (0) within four balls. After Kushagra’s dismissal, Nadeem completed his second century with number 11 player Rahul Shukla (29 not out). For Nagaland, the spin pair of Lemtur and Kensey took three wickets each.
After the end of the first three rounds of the current Ranji season, Nagaland were on top of the Plate Group by winning all three matches. Whereas Jharkhand stood first in Group H, winning 2 out of 3 matches. Now after this match all the quarter final teams will be finalized. Earlier, except Group H and Plate Group, the top teams of all the other seven groups had reached the last-8.