Watch: In a Ranji Trophy quarter-final in Rajkot, Parth Bhut scored 111 not out – his maiden first-class hundred – to get a derailed Saurashtra innings back on track.
Until this point, there had been little in Bhut’s senior career that indicated an innings of this quality was possible. Let alone a hundred, he had never scored a fifty in his seven first-class matches since his debut in 2019/20. His highest score of 49 came earlier this season, against Assam at Guwahati.
Yet, in the quarter-final against Punjab at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, he came in to bat at 147-7. Three balls later, he lost Dharmendrasinh Jadeja before another run was added.
But he stayed put, adding 61 for the ninth wicket, with Chetan Sakariya (22), and 95 for the 10th, with Yuvrajsinh Dodiya (17) to lift Saurashtra to 303, a reasonable score in the absence of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja. One slog-swept six after skipping down the track stood out, in particular.
Bhut remained unbeaten on 111 in 155 balls, having hit 11 fours and four sixes. This is now the highest score by a No.9 batter for Saurashtra, eclipsing Jaydev Unadkat’s 92 against Jammu & Kashmir in 2015/16.
The last-wicket partnership of 95 between Bhut and Dodiya was a substantial improvement on the 11, the previous record for Saurashtra against Punjab, between Balkrishna Jadeja and Siddharth Trivedi in 2012/13.
Earlier, Baltej Singh (3-60) claimed Harvik Desai with the fourth ball after Arpit Vasavada won the toss and opted to bat. Snell Patel (70) and Vishwaraj Jadeja (28) responded with a 77-run stand before leg-spinner Mayank Markande (4-84) set in motion a collapse. At one point, Markande’s figures read 4-20 before Bhut took charge.
In the lone over bowled before stumps, the Punjab openers added three runs without being separated.
Meanwhile, in Kolkata, Bengal bowled out Jharkhand for 173 in a curtailed day of cricket. At Bengaluru, Karnataka shot out Uttarakhand for 116 before their openers took them to 123-0 by stumps.
And in Indore, a ball from Avesh Khan broke Andhra captain Hanuma Vihari’s hand, but the Andhra batters kept defending champions Madhya Pradesh at bay to end the day on 262-2.
