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Karun Nair and skipper Akshay Wadkar's resilient knocks kept Vidarbha alive and took the game to Day 5 in the Ranji Trophy final against Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.
Vidarbha ended the day with a score of 248/5 with Akshay and Harsh Dubey unbeaten with scores of 56(91) and 11(10) respectively. After folding in their first innings on a score of 105, Vidarbha fought back with sheer resolve to see the day out while chasing the target of 538 runs. Atharva Taide (32), Dhruv Shorey (28) and Aman Mokhade (32) got off to a promising start but failed to build on it. The spin trio of Shams Mulani, Tanush Kotian and Musheer Khan combined to remove the opening batters to put Mumbai in the driver's seat. Mulani removed Atharva in the 19th over and Kotian added pressure on Vidarbha by dismissing Dhruv in the next over. Karun Nair and Aman steadied the ship by adding 54 runs on the board but Mumbai bounced back with Musheer providing the crucial breakthrough. Nair held on to his end as Vidarbha suffered another blow with Kotian removing Yash Rathod before his innings could take off (7). Akshay joined Nair on the crease and raised hopes in Vidarbha's camp of making a comeback. Both batters showed patience with intent to negate Mumbai's spin threat. Nair and Akshay stitched up a 90-run stand slowly bringing down the required target. But Musheer's moment of magic got the better of Nair and ended his stay on the crease for a score of 74. Akshay continued to put up runs on the board and raised his bat for 50 with a maximum. Vidarbha need 290 runs on the final day to clinch victory while Mumbai need five wickets to emerge victorious. Brief Score: Mumbai: 224 and 418 (Musheer Khan 136, Shreyas Iyer 95, Harsh Dubey 5/144) vs Vidarbha: 105 and 248/5 (Karun Nair 74, Akshay Wadkar 56*; Musheer Khan 2-38). (ANI)
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