CHENNAI: Riding on Aditya Thakare’s penetrative bowling (5/34), Vidarbha bagged a handsome first innings lead of 128 runs over Tamil Nadu on the third day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinals being played at Nagpur on Monday. Apart from Thakare, Yash Thakur and Nachiket Bhute bowled lively spells in turns to trouble the Tamil Nadu batters. They bowled in the right areas and extracted good bounce to induce the Tamil Nadu batters to commit mistakes.

Later, an unbeaten 55 by Yash Rathod came in handy for the hosts as they were able to recover from a top order collapse to post 169 for 5 in 69 overs in their second essay. Harsh Dubey lent solid support to Rathod and was batting on 29, when bails were drawn. Their effort has put Vidarbha in a commanding position with an overall lead of 297 runs.

Earlier in the morning, Tamil Nadu’s hopes relied on the last recognised pair of Pradosh Ranjan Paul and Sai Kishore to stitch a partnership and reduce the deficit. But Sai Kishore fell to Thakur and soon M Mohammed also departed. Pradosh then managed to hang around with Sonu Yadav (32) and helped Tami Nadu breach the 200-run mark.

“It was a brilliant display by our attack. They were spot on and knew what lengths to bowl. Aditya used the surface to his advantage. He bowled in the right areas and could get good movement,” Dubey told this daily after the day’s play.

“We knew that Pradosh was the last batter for Tamil Nadu. So we were aware that the sooner we get him out bigger will be our lead. Yes, at the end of the day we have a fairly good lead,” added the left-arm spinner.