Supreme Saurashtra do the Jackson dance

Sheldon Jackson played one of the most important innings of his career an unbeaten 133 to guide Saurashtra to their second Vijay Hazare Trophy title as they comfortably beat Maharashtra by five wickets in the final here FridayTight bowling performanceSaurashtrarsquos welloiled bowling unit led by its skipper tamed a formidable batting lineup from Maharashtra before old domestic warhorse Jacksonrsquos unbeaten century overshadowed national contender Ruturaj Gaikwadrsquos 108 to chase down a target of 249 with 21 balls to spareSuarashtrarsquos Sheldon Jackson thanks the heavens after hitting the winning run against Maharashtra in Ahmedabad yesterdayAlso Read Runs galore on placid pitch as Pakistan openers hold firmAt the onset Unadkat led the bowling show with an exemplary opening spell 6150 in the Powerplay after electing to field as Gaikwad batted in a painstakingly slow fashion scoring 15 off first 61 ballsldquoIt is unbelievable and yet to sink in Winning once is amazing but winning it the second time proves that we are a champion side Big game big guys stepped uprdquo the champion skipper said at the postmatch presentation ceremonyWhile Unadkat 125 was Saurashtrarsquos bowling hero in the first 10 overs keeping the dangerous Gaikwad under tight leash the last 10 overs of the Maharashtra innings belonged to allrounder Chirag Jani The seam bowling allrounderrsquos 48th over hattrick Saurabh Nawale Rajvardhan Hagargekar and Vicky Ostwal stopped Maharashtra from adding at least 20 more runsGaikwadrsquos superb ton streakIn the middle overs it was another Gaikwad show as he carved his name as a lsquoVijay Hazare legendrsquo with his 12th hundred highest in competition history with seven fours and four sixes He thus had three hundreds in three knockout games but on a slowish track Saurashtra bowlers never really let the Maharashtra batters dominate with second best score being Azim Kazirsquos 31Chasing a belowpar target Saurashtra got off to a perfect start with Jackson and Harvik Desai 50 67 balls stitching a 125run opening stand in 264 oversMukesh Choudhary 238 then gave a double blow dismissing Desai with a short ball and Jay Gohil 0 with angular one in a space of three balls while a third wicketmdashSamarth Vyas 12 was holed in the deep off Ostwalrsquos bowlingThey lost half of their side 395 overs after allrounder Prerak Mankad was cleaned up by leftarm spinner Satyajeet Bachhav as the match was evenly poised with Saurashtra needing 57 in 101 oversHowever Bacchav was hammered by Jackson who hit four out of his five sixes off the leftarm orthodoxrsquos bowlingBut Maharashtra failed to apply pressure and some sloppy fielding let them down Indiarsquos U19 World Cup Rajvardhan Hangargekar 070 in 9 overs got a fair amount of pasting The match ended when Jackson despatched seamer Manoj Ingale over square leg for a six and played the leg glance to chase down the targetAlso Read Brooks replaces Bonner as concussion substitute for West Indies in ongoing Test Brief scoresMaharashtra 2489 in 50 overs R Gaikwad 108 A Kazi 37 C Jani 343 lost to Saurashtra 2495 in 463 overs S Jackson 133 H Desai 50 V Ostwal 220 M Choudhary 238 by five wicketsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever