Parthiv followed soon after, trapped in front by Pankaj after missing a flick, while Ashok Dinda’s stay was cut short by Mithun, who picked up his third wicket with the dismissal as India Green slipped to 177 for 7.
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Brief Scores: IndiaBlue 707 & vs India85 for no loss (Mayank Agarwal 49, Gautam Gambhir36) vs Green 237 all out in 61 overs (Parthiv Patel55, Suresh Raina 52; Abhimanyu 3/16, Karn Sharma 3/74).
India Green, with an opportunity to start afresh after a disappointing bowling display, were up against it nearly immediately as they lost M Vijay in the fourth over when he was deceived in flight and was bowled by Karn Sharma’s skidder.
By virtue of bowling Green out for 237 in response to their enormous 707, Blue opened up a 470-run lead.
Facing a mammoth total of 707, India Green fell flat in their chase as they were all out in their first innings for 237 on Day3.
Even though IndiaBlue could have enforced follow-on on IndiaGreen, skipper Gautam Gambhirpreffered to have some batting practice with their place in the summit clash a mere fomality from here on.
It was a dominant display in every respect from Blue, and the catalyst they needed to kick-start the process came in the form of Karn. Karn spotted M Vijay dancing down the track and slid the ball through to knock over the stumps in the fourth over of the day. Taking note of Shreyas Gopal’s purchase en route to his five-wicket haul in the first innings, Gambhir opened the bowling with the legspinner and Pankaj. That is exactly what led to Jalaj Saxena and Robin Uthappa’s downfall. Meanwhile, Robin Uthappa was batting with typical disdain for good quality bowling.
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Suresh Raina made a late attempt to salvage pride as his quick-fire innings of 52 from 43 balls took India Green past the 200-mark. However, India Green lost another wicket against the run of play as Mithun got Shreyas to nick one to the keeper to end a stand worth 78 runs. When Parthiv Patel fell off the first ball of the next over to Pankaj for a well-crafted 55, the innings was on freefall at 168 for 6. India Blue ended day three at 85/0, with a gigantic lead of 555. However, this did not prevent India Green from losing wickets at regular intervals and Parvez Rasool brought an end to Raina’s blitzkrieg with a clever off break. With that ended India Green’s fight. Gambhir and Mayank Agarwal started the second innings in an assured fashion, scoring boundaries freely.
