Varun Aaron hitting the right strides

Varun Aaron (4/47) and Ashish Kumar (3/32) shared seven wickets between them to enable Jharkhand to bundle out Maharashtra for a mere 210.

On the opening day of the Ranji Trophy season, things went according to plan for Jharkhand skipper Varun Aaron against Maharashtra. The kind of pace Aaron generates, upwards of 145 kmph, is not commonplace in domestic cricket. The wicket assisted the fast bowlers — though the bounce and seam movement were not as much as Aaron had expected. But when you have the gift of pace it compensates for lack of other factors. Aaron led the three-man pace attack, the others being Ajay Yadav and Ashish Kumar, on a successful day as they picked up nine of the Maharashtra wickets to fall on Day One of this Group B match.
Aaron struck first in the second over of the innings by getting one of Maharashtra’s mainstays Harshad Khadiwale to edge one to the wicket-keeper Ishan Kishan. This was the start of an early collapse before a 102-run partnership between Kedar Jadhav and Ankit Bhawne for the fourth wicket stemmed the rot. By the first hour, Maharashtra lost two more wickets. Opener Swapnil Gugale and No.3 Ruturaj Gaikwad fell to Aaron’s new-ball partner Ajay Yadav. Maharashtra recovered through the Jadhav-Bhawne partnership but Aaron broke the stand in this third spell of the day by having the latter caught by Ishank Jaggi.
In his fourth spell, Aaron picked up two more wickets, that of Rahul Tripathi and Shrikant Mundhe. Both batsmen were beaten for pace and were bowled. This was during a period in which Aaron was suffering from cramps. Fortunately for Aaron, the workload was shared as Kumar picked up three wickets in one over — that of the well set Bawane and of No.9 and 10, Anupam Sanklecha and Satyajeet Bachhav. Maharashtra lost six wickets for 22 runs.