Gurbani reveals the secret behind his hat-trick in the Ranji Trophy final

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Sabyasachi Bagchi, Kolkata: Rajneesh Gurbani’s hat-trick helped Vidarbha to be on the top of Delhi in the finals of Ranji Trophy. His five wickets haul took the game in the favour of his team as something brilliant was needed.

Delhi batsmen had no answer to his brilliant in cutting deliveries in the good length areas. 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 also included centurion Dhruv Shorey, He is just the second man to claim hat- trick in the Ranji Trophy Tamil Nadu’s B Kalyanasundaram was the first, achieving the feat against Mumbai in 1972/73 season.

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 momentum 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.

Subroto Banerjee, former Indian player and Vidarbha bowling coach was delighted to see the success of his student said, “I said him to forget all what he did so far in the group stages and the semifinals. It’s a new start so you have to stick to the basics and he did it. I used Bottle and stopper fourth stump by using another stump hanging just outside the off-stump in the good length areas to help him to know the areas where to bowl.”

It was still advantage for Delhi till Gurbani get the wicket of Rishabh Pant and Apoorv Wankhade to end the innings of seven-time champions Delhi. Veteran Wasim Jaffer came into rescue for Vidarbha as he scored 61 runs as Vidarbha trailed by 89 runs at the stumps of day two.

Rajneesh told, “I wasn’t aware of the hat-trick ball but the crowd started to cheer. It was a very special moment for me as my mother offered worship to God. My teammates are happy but, we have to win the match to make the day memorable. My teammates are very happy with my performance.”