Ranji Trophy: Faiz Fazal’s 65 in vain as Avesh Khan bowls Madhya Pradesh to fourth straight win | Cricket News – Times of India

NAGPUR: Barring skipper Faiz Fazal (65; 193b, 8×4), the Vidarbha team continued to have an off day in office for the fourth day at Indore on Friday. Avesh Khan broke the backbone of Vidarbha batting once again. The pacer came up with a five-wicket haul and took Madhya Pradesh to a massive 205 runs victory in the Ranji Trophy match at Holkar Stadium.
Chasing 407 for victory, Vidarbha were bowled out for 201 in 73.1 overs. In the first innings as well, they had made just 160 and handed the advantage to the hosts very early in the match. Avesh, who took 12 wickets for 82 runs in the match, was the nemesis Vidarbha failed to tame.
It was Vidarbha’s second straight defeat in the tournament after their forgetable loss to Jammu & Kashmir last week. On the other hand, Chandrakant Pandit coached MP is the only team across all Elite groups to have won four out of four matches. While MP are topping Group D, Vidarbha are sitting in fourth place.
Resuming at the overnight score of 13 for 1, and chasing such a big total appearing improbable on the last day pitch, Vidarbha had their eyes on playing out a draw by batting through the day.
After losing first innings half centurion R Sanjay at the fag end of Day 3, all hopes of playing out the last day rested on Faiz. The southpaw dealt well with the disciplined MP bowling led by Avesh.

On the other side, Avesh dismissed Nachiket Bhute (12) for his first wicket of the day. Later, he sent back Atharva Taide (1). Soon, Ganesh Satish headed back off Puneet Datey’s bowling and Vidarbha were reeling at 61 for 4.
Faiz and Akshay Wadkar (38) showed some resistance. Wadkar was the only batter apart from Faiz to look comfortable in the middle. They played some 24 overs between them scoring 74 runs in 142 balls for the fifth wicket, and forced MP to make some bowling changes. However, Gaurav Yadav (4-61) gave MP the important breakthrough by removing Wadkar.
Defiant Faiz’s innings came to an end when the score was 162, and in the next 39 runs, Vidarbha’s innings had ended and MP had secured six points.
Brief Scores: Madhya Pradesh 309 & 257 for 5 decl beat Vidarbha 160 & 201 all out in 73.1 overs (Faiz Fazal 65, Akshay Wadkar 38; Avesh Khan 5-44, Gaurav Yadav 4-61) by 205 runs