Shubman Gill and Ravindra Jadeja had disappointing returns on the first day of the sixth round of the 2025/26 Ranji Trophy.
Jadeja fails on Ranji return, Harpreet Brar claims six
Saurashtra were bowled out for 172 after Jaydev Unadkat won the toss and opted to bat in Rajkot. They lost early wickets, and were 41-3 when Jadeja joined Jay Gohil at the crease.
Jadeja is known for scoring big in the Ranji Trophy – he has three triple hundreds in the tournament and two other doubles – but this was not going to be his day. Playing a first-class match for the first time since the Test series against South Africa, he hit off-spinner Jassinder Singh to Harpreet Brar for a six-ball seven.
Prerak Mankad (32), the next man in, helped Gohil add 57, but once he fell, Saurashtra collapsed to 172. Gohil was the last bat out, for 82. He fell to Brar, whose 6-38 was the first five-wicket haul of his first-class career.
A familiar face for the Punjab Kings in the IPL, Brar had played only two first-class matches before this, both in the ongoing season of the Ranji Trophy: he had 3-29 and 3-56 against Chandigarh, and 2-82 against Maharashtra.
Match 102, Saurashtra vs Punjab
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Shubman Gill falls for a duck
Gill too, was returning to first-class cricket after he missed almost the entirety of the Kolkata Test against South Africa with a neck injury. He came into the game with a Ranji Trophy average of 64.09, and had scored a hundred in his last appearance in the competition, a year ago against Karnataka.
Here, the Punjab captain came to bat at No.5 after Parth Bhut dismissed Nehal Wadhera with the fourth ball of the 20th over. He did not even last the over: Bhut trapped him lbw with the sixth. Prabhsimran Singh, who had held the fort until then, fell to Dharmendrasinh Jadeja off the next ball, making it three wickets in four balls.
Punjab, 73-5 at that point, were 100-5 at the time of writing with Anmolpreet Singh (18) and Prerit Dutta (9) at the crease. Opening the bowling, Ravindra Jadeja had conceded 34 in eight wicketless overs.
