Gritty Jonty Sidhu yanks three points from Chhattisgarh

Jonty Sidhu turned out to be Delhi’s saviour once again as he guided his team through choppy waters and helped them take a slender lead of 14 runs by virtue of which they earned three points in the first Ranji Trophy game against Chhattisgarh in Raipur.

Delhi had dismissed Chhattisgarh for 343 in first innings and were reduced to 236/7. The people of cricket in Delhi, already frustrated by under-19 team’s poor performance in the Vinoo Mankad Trophy, set the DDCA corridors abuzz with choicest of expletives.

However, Sidhu stepped in with 103 not out off 170 balls to save the team the blushes.

This isn’t the first time he has extracted points from the depths of looming defeat. In the final match of the last season at Delhi’s Jamia, he played a similar heroic knock, of 105 not out, to salvage some pride for the already ousted Delhi.

“In junior cricket, I used to make bigger hundreds because I was batting at the top. Here, at the senior level, I come at fourth down so I have sort of understood the role of batting with the bowlers,” said Sidhu to www.thedelhijunction.com after the match.

The Raipur pitch was tough for batting.

“This pitch was tougher than the one in Jamia. The ball was coming on slowly, it was keeping low and there was some sharp turn too. We knew after we had dismissed them for 343 that we were in for a big toil,” added Sidhu about his knock.

“I have to thank the bowlers, especially Navdeep Saini, for holding their ground. The 96 balls he saw off played a key role. If he hadn’t done that, we may not have got the lead.”

Sidhu shepherded the strike and took upon himself the task of taking the team home.  

He hit 11 fours and two sixes.

“The situation at the end with the bowlers was that we knew that we had to score runs quickly. After Saini bhaiyya was dismissed, I knew I have to score runs quickly. They had spread the entire field wide and sent fielders away. The pitch was also not easy,” said Sidhu.

“At that time, I had planned to hit fours without lofting them. That plan was executed well and we scored 20-25 runs quickly. After that, when we had the last wicket, I had to go all out and hit one or two sixes. We faced a lot of difficulty while chasing the last few runs.”

The Chhattisgarh bowlers started bowling the last three balls of every over wide outside off-stump. Himanshu had to face one over and was lucky to get a life.

“I then decided to go all out in the next over. I couldn’t trust Himanshu with the bat. I went after the bowler Shashank,” said the Player of the Match.

Tags : Ranji Trophy, Jonty Sidhu, DDCA, Delhi cricket, Chhattisgarh cricket, Raipur