Duleep Trophy Final, Review: India Blue blow away India Red to clinch the title

India Blue, riding on Ravindra Jadeja’s skillful bowling, bundled out India Red for a paltry 161 in the fourth innings to clinch the 2016 Duleep Trophy in an emphatic fashion. The India Red batsmen fell like nine pins to hand India Blue a huge 355 runs win, the fourth largest victory by any team in a Duleep Trophy match.

Chasing a giant 517 runs to win, India Red batsmen could have probably thought of batting the day out and end the match with some respect as it was quite understandable that the game was probably heading towards a draw after rains washed out most of the play on day 4. However, the spin bowling attack led by Ravindra Jadeja di not offer them any chance to survive and cleaned them up without any hassle.

After losing almost the entire day of play due to rains yesterday, it felt like the match would possibly end as a draw. India Blue, who came out to bat at the overnight score of 139/3, finally declared the innings on 179/5 after stretching the lead past the 500 run mark.

India Red had a horrible start to their chase when they lost opener Abhimanyu Mithun retired hurt in just the 2nd over of the chase. A little later, after putting 43 runs on the board, both Shikhar Dhawan and Sudip Chatterjee went back to the pavilion in consecutive overs.

Skipper Yuvraj Singh and Stuart Binny battled it out in the middle for some time before both also departed in the same manner reducing India Red to 4 wickets down before they could breach the 100 run mark.

There was no respite afterwards as the wicket fell in short successions. The middle order and the lower middle order which and put up a brilliant show in previous innings could replicate the same performance. Ravindra Jadeja (5/76), Pervez Rasool (1/31) and Karn Sharma (3/33) were at their best.

The India Red was never in the contest as the India Blue side dominated right from the day one. Day one was all about Gautam Gambhir and Mayank Agarwal who frustrated the Yuvraj Singh-led side with their sturdy batting.

Things became more frustrating as the game moved to the second day as India Blue went to pile on a mammoth 693 runs total on the scoreboard powered by Cheteshwar Pujara’s 10^th double century and Sheldon Jackson ton.

The India Red side was now put under pressure to replicate the opposition’s batting display and avoid giving away a massive first innings lead. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to do that and as anticipated gave away a big lead to India Blue courtesy to Ravindra Jadeja’ five-wicket haul. India Blue promptly took advantage of it to set an improbable looking target for the India Red to chase.

Jadeja, the left arm spinner, again grabbed the limelight to snap another fifer to finish the match way before it was anticipated to finish.

Brief Scores:

1st Innings 

India Blue: 693/6 dec.

India Red: 356 all out

2nd Innings

India Blue: 179/6d (M Agarwal 52; K Yadav 3/62)

India Red: 161 all out (Gurkeerat Mann 39; R Jadeja 5/76)