Jammu & Kashmir 302 (Samad 82, Shami 8-90) and 126 for 4 (Vanshaj 43, Samad 30*, Akash Deep 3-46) beat Bengal 328 (Gharami 146, Nabi 5-87) and 99 (Shahbaz 24, Sunil 4-27, Nabi 4-36) by six wickets
J&K were in the ascendancy when Vanshaj and Shubham Pundir walked out on Wednesday, requiring 83 with eight wickets in hand. Very quickly, they realised the target would not be a cakewalk with Mohammed Shami and Akash Deep getting the ball to move around. Both bowlers beat the bat in the first half-an-hour with J&K not taking any risks.
Pundir, who looked solid on the third evening, broke the shackles by playing Akash Deep fluently through midwicket. But Shami clipped his wings almost immediately with a peach. From the around-the-wicket angle, he landed the length ball on off and got it to hoop back into Pundir. The batter looked for a drive on the up, but got nowhere near the ball and was clean bowled.
Paras Dogra, the J&K captain, was then rapped on the pad by a Shami inducker which was sent upstairs by Bengal, only for replays to show that the ball was missing leg stump. With the runs down to a trickle, the Bengal bowlers sensed a chance for a comeback.
Akash Deep went short at Dogra, troubling him consistently. He got his first four after a while, taking the target below 60, but Akash Deep had his man soon after. Floating the ball full and wide, he tempted Dogra into a drive, who took the bait, only managing a thin edge to the right of wicketkeeper Habib Gandhi, who dived to complete the catch. The third umpire was called to check for the fairness of the catch, and after multiple replays, he went with Bengal.
At 71 for 4, and still requiring 55 for a win, the game could have gone either way but Samad, much like in the first innings, pushed Bengal out of the contest. He thumped Akash Deep over wide long-on for a flat six and then found a four to bring the target below 50. When Shahbaz Ahmed came into the attack, Samad was down the track in a flash and smashed him for back-to-back sixes, one over long-on and the other over deep extra cover.
With the nerves in the J&K camp settling down, Vanshaj, who had been circumspect all morning, went after Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal for three fours in an over before tonking Mukesh Kumar straight over the bowler’s head to spark wild celebrations in the J&K camp. Sixty-seven years after their maiden Ranji appearance, J&K have made it to their first final.