An angry young pacer from Punjab couldn’t stop himself from saying that they would have played much better on the nearby highway than at the pitch laid in Saurashtra Cricket Association’s Stadium in Khanderi.

You couldn’t blame him. The Group B Ranji Trophy league game between Saurashtra vs Punjab saw just two innings with the visitors taking first-innings lead. Five centuries were scored including one double hundred in this game. It was one great yawn-inducing affair that did no one any good. No bowler really enjoys the flight to Rajkot for they have always got a raw deal in this part of India. Out of the eight Ranji Trophy matches played here in past three years nearly 7,690 runs have been scored with two triple, four double and 11 hundreds piled up by batsmen.

And only three outright wins were possible. Interestingly, in those three games, there was just one hundred — Cheteshwar Pujara had hit 203 against Madhya Pradesh.

“There is no point in playing on these kind of pitches which don’t give results. We all are not playing for one point. At least something should be there in the pitch otherwise it’s of no use. You will keep seeing such kind of games which will lead nowhere,” Punjab captain Harbhajan Singh said after the game.

However, there was some drama at the fag end of the first-innings chase on Wednesday. Saurashtra, who were chasing a mammoth score of 659 runs needed 137 runs in the final session of fourth day’s play and had three wickets in hand.

They had the centurion Sheldon Jackson holding fort and giving him company was the tailender Vishal Joshi. Jackson took charge of the big chase, slamming a four and a six off Yuvraj Singh. The match was heading towards an interesting finish when Yuvraj the left-arm spinner decided to seize the moment. He trapped Vishal Joshi in front of the middle stump before he got Siddharth Trivedi and Sudeep Tyagi off successive deliveries, in his 11th over, to seal the deal for Punjab.

Action Jackon

It was Jackson who threatened to pull off a heist at one stage. He went for his shots despite getting couple of chances. Jackson was dropped on 31 by wicket-keeper Gitansh Khera off Amitoze Singh and at that stage Saurashtra needed 311 runs. He later slammed Harbhajan Singh for two back to back fours and played some peachy punched-drives off Punjab pacers Siddharth Kaul and Maninder Singh.

Brief scores: Punjab 659 for 7 dec (Mandeep 235, Yuvraj 182, Gurkeerat 101) and 15 for 0 drew with Saurashtra 559.