Debasis Sen: Rajneesh Gurbani’s brilliant spell helped Vidarbha to reach the final of the Ranji Trophy for the very first time as they beat Karnataka by just five runs in a thrilling encounter at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata today. In this nail biter he picked 12 wickets in the match to help his side to reach the final.
In the first three-days Karnataka totally dominated the game, but after that Rajneesh showed his class to destroy one of the best batting sides in domestic cricket. According to him, he was just trying to bowl on wicket to wicket and keep the basics right on a wicket which was helping the pacers.” I knew that I can swing the ball and that’s why my only aim was to hit the right areas and try to force the batsmen play as much as possible,” said Rajneesh while talking to www.xtratime.in.
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It was a dream for Rajneesh to open the bowling with star Indian pacer Umesh Yadav. After fulfilling that dream he looked pretty happy.” It was my dream to share the ball with him when I joined Vidarbha. Beside Dale Steyn, he is my idol too. I always tried to learn everything from him. A cricketer of his class always talks to us very humbly on and off the field. When he shared the ball with me, I was totally calm as I knew that Umesh bhai is there to watch my back,” added Rajneesh.
On being asked what his feeling was when he was bowling the over to Arvind Sreenath and Karnataka needed just five runs to win, Rajneesh said,” It was the last wicket and I was just thinking that I had to take the wicket at any cost. Wasim (Wasim Jaffer) came to me and said to bowl an out swinger as he was a leftie. I did that and luckily I got the wicket too.”
“I was a bit tensed too last night as we needed just three wickets to win. I slept very early at 9pm but woke up at 12 as I thought that it’s time to go to the stadium for the game. But later I realize that it’s just midnight and slept again. Later I again woke up at 4 o’clock and was ready to play the match ahead of my teammates.”
They will face mighty Delhi in their very first Ranji Trophy final. Rajneesh feels there would be no pressure on them.” Our team’s mantra is focus on your process, not on the results. We will give our best against them, whether we win or lose. The whole team is very excited and we are ready for the big final,” concluded Rajneesh.