The third round of Ranji Trophy 2017-18 concluded with this round witnessing nine outright results out of the 12 matches played. The battle between heavyweights Mumbai and Tamil Nadu ended in a stalemate after the latter earned a first innings lead. The defending champions Gujarat beatJammu & Kashmir by innings and 64 runs while Maharashtra just squeezed past Uttar Pradesh with a 31-run win in Lucknow. Hyderabad lost to Karnataka after both were dismissed for less than 200 in their respective first essays. Jharkhand, Railways, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal and Punjab also registered wins in their respective games.
RANJI TROPHY 2017-18
Stats: Jalaj Saxena's dream run continues
Saxena now has 26 wickets after three games in addition to 284 runs at an average of 94.66. © BCCI
Stats highlights from Round 3 of Ranji Trophy 2017-18:
302* by Hanuma Vihari is only the second triple century for Andhra in Ranji Trophy after 308 by K Srikar Bharat against Goa in Ongole in the 2014-15 season. The previous highest by an Andhra skipper was 264 by Amit Pathak against Goa in Margao in 2000-01. Vihari is the leading run scorer after the first three rounds this season with 468 runs.
9 Vihari's unbeaten 302 was the ninth instance of a captain scoring a triple hundred in Ranji Trophy history. Incidentally, three of those instances have come since 2016 with Swapnil Gugale and Sagun Lamat scoring triple tons in the last season.
Triple centuries by captains in Ranji Trophy
| Score | Player | Team | Against | Venue | Start Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 302* | Hanuma Vihari | Andhra | Odisha | Vizinagaram | 24 Oct 17 | Draw |
| 304* | Sagun Kamat | Goa | Services | Cuttack | 20 Oct 16 | Draw |
| 351* | Swapnil Gugale | Maharashtra | Delhi | Mumbai (WS) | 13 Oct 16 | Draw |
| 312 | Sunny Singh | Haryana | MP | Indore | 3 Nov 09 | Draw |
| 301 | Wasim Jaffer | Mumbai | Saurashtra | Chennai | 4 Jan 09 | Draw |
| 312 | Raman Lamba | Delhi | HP | Delhi | 31 Dec 94 | Won |
| 377 | Sanjay Manjrekar | Bombay | Hyderabad | Mumbai (WS) | 24 Apr 91 | Draw |
| 340 | Sunil Gavaskar | Bombay | Bengal | Mumbai (WS) | 25 Feb 82 | Won |
| 359* | Vijay Merchant | Bombay | Maharashtra | Mumbai (BS) | 31 Dec 43 | Draw |
3 Jalaj Saxena became the third player to score a century and take eight wickets in an innings in Ranji Trophy after Chandra Sarwate (101 and 9 for 61) for Holkar in 1945-46 and Ravinder Pandit (158 and 8 for 33) for Jammu & Kashmir in 1986-87. Saxena took 8 for 85 and scored an unbeaten 105 for Kerala against Rajasthan in Trivandrum. He is the leading wicket-taker this season with 26 scalps coming at 12.88 apiece.
2 Saxena became only the second Kerala player to score a century and take a five-wicket haul in Ranji Trophy after KN Ananthapadmanabhan who scored 200 and took 6 for 99 against Odisha in Cuttack in 1996-97. Saxena scored his 12th century and took his 15th five-fer in first-class cricket in this match but it was the first instance of doing both in the same match.
11 Saxena became the 11th player to achieve the double of 4000 runs and 200 wickets in Ranji Trophy. His 78 matches to the double is the fifth fastest after Vijay Hazare (42), Chandra Sarwate (61), ML Jaisimha (70) and Madan Lal (73).
All-rounders with 4000+ runs & 200+ wkts in Ranji Trophy
| Player | Mat | Runs | Bat Avg | Wkts | Bowl Avg | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sanjay Bangar | 125 | 6937 | 35.57 | 233 | 31.13 | 4.44 |
| Sunil Joshi | 117 | 4117 | 29.19 | 479 | 23.25 | 5.94 |
| Sairaj Bahutule | 124 | 4426 | 34.31 | 405 | 25.61 | 8.70 |
| Tushar Arothe | 106 | 5818 | 38.02 | 208 | 28.52 | 9.50 |
| Jalaj Saxena | 78 | 4597 | 41.04 | 205 | 27.54 | 13.50 |
| Jai Prakash Yadav | 99 | 5814 | 37.75 | 234 | 22.02 | 15.73 |
| MV Narasimha Rao | 84 | 4114 | 47.83 | 209 | 25.24 | 22.59 |
| Chandra Sarwate | 81 | 4923 | 43.18 | 285 | 20.55 | 22.63 |
| ML Jaisimha | 90 | 5227 | 45.85 | 235 | 21.94 | 23.91 |
| Madan Lal | 106 | 5270 | 52.70 | 351 | 18.90 | 33.80 |
| Vijay Hazare | 71 | 6312 | 69.36 | 291 | 19.81 | 49.55 |
55 Assam's second innings total against Railways in Guwahati - the second lowest ever for a team against Railways. The only lower total against Railways came way back in 1958-59 season when Eastern Punjab folded for 21 in Jalandhar.
3 Double hundreds by Jiwanjot Singh for Punjab in Ranji Trophy. His 238 against Goa in Porvorim is also his highest individual score in first-class cricket as well as the highest for by any Punjab batsman against Goa. Only Pankaj Dharmani (5) and Vikram Rathour (4) have gone past 200 more times for Punjab than Jiwanjot.
1 Amandeep Khare became the first player to score a double century for Chhattisgarh, who made their Ranji Trophy debut last year. He scored 210 against Vidarbha in a drawn game in Nagpur. The previous highest score for them was also by Khare who scored 143 against Andhra in Kalyani last season.
© Cricbuzz
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