Parthiv Patel's 149 shines as Gujarat and Baroda play out a draw

In the latest round of Cooch Behar Trophy (West Zone) that ended on Saturday, Gujarat and Baroda met at the Sardar Vallabh Patel Stadium, Navarangapura, Ahmedabad. The match ended in a tame draw with Gujarat bagging the first innings honours thanks to a brilliant knock of 149 by Parthiv Patel.

On thursday, Baroda won the toss and asked Gujarat to have a bat. Gujarat got a dream start for the first wicket as Deep Trivedi and Parthiv Patel put on 201 runs in 76.2 overs. Deep Trivedi was the first to go, caught by Akhilesh Rana off the bowling of a persisting Hitshu Bachani for 68. Trivedi was at the crease for 277 minutes and faced 227 balls and hit four strokes to the fence. Captain Akash Christian joined Parthiv Patel who had by then compiled a well deserved century of 205 balls with twelve fours.

Akash made 38 and added 63 for the second wicket with Parthiv before Hardik Parmar had him caught behind by Yatin Sawant. Hardik picked up two more wickets in quick succesion to leave Gujarat at 280/4. At the same score Irfan Pathan had the centurion Parthiv Patel edging behind to the keeper Yatin Sawant. Parthiv made 149 in 321 balls and hit the ball for 18 boundaries. It was his knock that stood tall in the whole match. Gujarat never recovered after Partiv's fall. They lost the remaining five wickets for 36 runs. It was a brilliant spell by Hitshu Bachani that did the damage. As a matter of fact Gujarat lost their last nine wickets for 52 runs. The bowling glory was shared by Hardik Parmar 21.3-6-67-4 and Hitshu Bachani 28-8-43-5. Baroda wicket keeper Yatin Sawant bagged five catches as Gujarat were bowled out for 316 in 125.3 overs

Baroda made 208/8 in 64 overs as they declared their first innings. Opener Sudip Kale made 47 with eight fours and Hardik Parmar hit a quickfire 51 not out in 67 balls including seven boundaries. No Baroda other batsman made an impression on the match. Swapnil Trivedi 14-2-40-4 and Salil Yadav 17-5-57-3 excelled with the ball. Baroda had conceded the first innings points and was hoping to force a positive result.

Gujarat were in no mood to make a match out of it as they batted through the last day and scored 209/6 in 84.5 overs. Swapnil Patel scored 40 and captain Akash Christian made 57 in 151 balls with eight boundaries. Hitshu Bachani was again amongst wickets 27-11-49-4. He had a memorable match with the ball as he finished with the macth figures of 9/92 in 55 overs. Gujarat took home five points and Baroda three.