Saurashtra thrash Assam by 10 wickets, enter Ranji final

Left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat wreaked havoc with the ball as Saurashtra dished out a dominant performance to thrash Assam by 10 wickets and sail into the final of the Ranji Trophy cricket tournament, here on Monday.

Such was Saurashtra's dominance that they wrapped up the five-day match inside three days with Assam batsmen falling flat in front of the opposition bowling unit led by Unadkat, who returned with impressive match figures of 11 for 112 runs. Unadkat, who picked up six wickets in Assam's first innings, followed it up with yet another stellar show scalping five more victims in the second essay by giving away just 45 runs.Resuming at the overnight score of 254 for five Saurashtra added 99 more runs before being bowled out for 353 in their first innings in reply to Assam's 234.

Centurion Cheteshwar Pujara (126) managed to add just 10 runs to his overnight score while Chirag Jani made 43 and Deepak Punia was unbeaten on 42. For Assam, pace duo of Krishna Das (3/80) and Arup Das (3/105) shared six wickets between them. But it was all Unadkat and his pacer partner Hardik Rathod's show as the hunted in pair to bundle out a sorry-looking Assam for just 139 runs in their second essay, thereby setting up an easy target of 21 runs for Saurashtra to seal the affair which they did woth aplomb.

Assam had made it to the last four stage of Ranji Trophy for the first time in the history of the tournament.

Brief Scores: Assam: 234 & 139 all out 39.1 overs (Jalaluddin Syed Mohammad 39; Unadkat 5/45). Saurashtra: 254 & 24 for no loss in 3.1 overs. Saurashtra won by 10 wickets.