They may not admit it openly but if there’s a team Karnataka hate playing against, it’s probably Saurashtra. Barring a couple of happy memories, the clashes have often left the southerners with a lot of anguish. More pain followed for the hosts on Friday as veterans Sheldon Jackson and Arpit Vasavada hit brilliant centuries to haul Saurashtra firmly back in the Ranji Trophy semifinal.
While 36-year-old Jackson smashed a stroke-filled 245-ball 160 (23x4, 2x6) — his fourth first-class century against Karnataka and 20th overall — Vasavada, younger by two years, dropped anchor in a probing opening session before slowly shifting gears to crack an unbeaten 112 (219b, 15x4) — his 11th first-class century — at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Thanks to their superb 232-run stand for the fourth wicket, Saurashtra, who have beaten Karnataka five times out of the 11 occasions they’ve played and not lost in the three knockout clashes as well, took stumps at a strong 364/4, trailing by just 43 runs.
Jackson and Vasavada joined forces after overnight batter Harvik Desai was dismissed off the last ball of the fifth over of the morning (92/3). Karnataka’s novice pace attack, which has been incisive throughout the season and looked extremely threatening even on the previous evening, went on the attack right away.
Their lines were full and around the off stump. They were probing and bowled to the plan that has given them results all season. But Jackson and Vasavada had other ideas and both of them executed it to the hilt to leave a trying Karnataka completely flat at the end of the day.
Jackson, who cracked a match-winning second-innings century in the semifinal against Karnataka at this very ground along with Cheteshwar Pujara in 2018/19, chose the counter-attacking route. He unleashed a big shot in the first couple of balls of every over and never allowed the Karnataka seamers to get into any sort of rhythm. If the ball was full, he stepped down and drove — straight and through covers. If it was short, he cut or pulled. Jackson simply toyed with the field placements and Karnataka skipper Mayank Agarwal was often left scratching his head to stem the damage.
Vasavada, on the other hand, was the ice to Jackson’s fire. Dropped on three by Manish Pandey at leg-slip, Vasavada was ultra defensive at the start. Several balls went past his edge, there were lots of leg-before appeals, he even got hit on the helmet grill early on, but not once did the left-hander lose his composure. He kept presenting a dead bat to whatever Karnataka threw at him to frustrate them. Eventually he started to play shots in the third session and now stands as Saurashtra’s main hope of taking them to a substantial lead.
Both Jackson and Vasavada also deserve appreciation for the way they handled a noisy Karnataka who gave everything they had. The pacers bowled their hearts out, there were a huge number of leg-before appeals, a frustrated Agarwal even had a long discussion with umpire, banter kept flowing from close-in fielders and the crowd, Manish Pandey even claimed a bump ball as catch…. Karnataka literally tried every trick in their book. But Jackson and Vasavada conjured all their experience to counter it and lay the foundation to build the road to final.