Ranji Trophy: Umar Nazir bamboozles batsmen in J&K’s fightback against Vidarbha

Jammu, Dec 27: After picking the 100th wicket in his 44th First Class match on Tuesday, 6 feet 3 inches tall J&K’s experienced seam bowler Umar Nazir on Wednesday bamboozled the rival batsmen by wobbling the ball both ways and purchasing pace and bounce from the track to capture 5 wickets in the Ranji Trophy Group-D match against Vidarbha at VCA Stadium, Civil Lines, Nagpur.
The lanky right-arm medium pacer once again proved that he is always a class act when on song as he came back strongly, missing the match against Gujarat after his ordinary outing against Madhya at home.
While sticking to his basics, Umar hit the right areas to make the ball talk and make batters face the music. With all the hard work by the bowlers, especially by Umar and left-arm spinner Abid Mushtaq, Vidarbha still managed a vital first-innings lead of 81 runs.
Earlier, resuming from an overnight score of 58/2, Vidarbha though lost wickets at regular intervals but rode on the magnificent innings by Atharva Taide and AA Sarvate and managed to score 272 runs in their first innings. Taide scored 74 runs off 136 balls with 11 boundaries, while Sarvate contributed valuable 75 runs off 137 balls, studded with 9 fours and 2 sixes. Vidarbha was struggling at 158/6 at one point in time, but a good partnership of 92 runs between Sarvate and lower-order batsman Harsh Dubey made all the difference. Dubey scored 55 runs off 71 balls including 8 boundaries.
For J&K, Umar Nazir was the wrecker-in-chief, who took 5 wickets by conceding 39 runs in his 21 overs, while Abid Mushtaq bagged 3 wickets by giving away 66 runs in his 20 overs. Auqib Nabi and Sahil Lotra claimed one wicket each.
J&K were 77 for 3 in 28 overs, still trailing by 4 runs in their second essay at stumps on day-2 on Wednesday.
Skipper Shubham Khajuria was unbeaten on 39 runs off 83 balls studded with 6 fours and one six, while wicketkeeper Fazil Rashid was at the crease on 3. Henan Malik (21), Vivrant Sharma (7) and Suryansh Raina (1) were the batsmen sent back to the pavilion.
Off-spinner Akshay Wakhare took 2 wickets for Vidarbha, while speedster Bhute claimed one.