Jammu: J&K’s newly appointed skipper and opening batsman Shubham Khajuria salvaged a lone battle as a batter, slamming a classic century before talented left-arm spinner Abid Mushtaq wreaked havoc with the ball, spinning web around the rival batsmen, capturing 8 wickets to power Jammu and Kashmir to a convincing 39-run victory over Vidarbha in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group-D match at VCA Stadium, Civil Lines, Nagpur on Thursday.
Chasing a modest victory target of 141 runs while beginning their second essay just before the lunch on the penultimate day of the match, Vidarbha collapsed at 101 runs as Abid wreaked havoc with the ball.
Apart from Atharva Taide (42) and Akshay Wadkar (28), none of the other batsmen could show much resistance against top class bowling display by Abid Mushtaq and first innings’ hero Umar Nazir.
For J&K, Abid Mushtaq was the wrecker-in-chief, who plotted collapse of the rival team, capturing 8 wickets by conceding just 18 runs in his 8 overs, while Umar Nazir bagged 2 wickets by giving away 34 runs in his 12 overs.
Earlier, resuming from overnight score of 58/2, Skipper Shubham Khajuria slammed a magnificent century, scoring 109 runs off 177 balls, studded with 15 fours and 4 sixes and guided J&K to make 221 runs, thus setting a target of 140 runs for Vidarbha. Abid Mushtaq (22), Henan Nazir (21) and Musaif Ajaz (19) were the other contributors.
Shubham, in particular, was in sublime form, showing stellar grit and tenacity to notch up his superb century.
For Vidarbha, off-spinner Akshay Wakhare was the pick of the bowlers, who took 4 wickets, while Sarvate bagged 3, speedster Bhute took 2 and Yash Thakur claimed one.
The Sub Committee Members of JKCA including Brig Anil Gupta, Member-Administration; Advocate Sunil Sethi, Member Legal Affairs and Cricketer Mithun Manhas, Member Cricket Operations and Development JKCA congratulated the team for this splendid victory.
Majid Dar, Member Cricket Development Kashmir, Roopali Slathia and Abdul Qayoom, Members Cricket Advisory Committee and Senior Selectors of JKCA including Vidhya Bhaskar, Vijay Sharma, Dhruv Mahajan and Arshid Bhat also congratulated the team for this emphatic win.
The team is being accompanied by former International cricketer Ajay Sharma as Head Coach, Rajan Singh as Manager, Tanmay Srivastava as Fielding Coach, Sunny Kumar as Trainer, Susheel Pajnu as Video/ Performance Analyst, Chirag Pandya as Physio and Naresh as Masseur.
