Ruturaj Gaikwad hit his straps right away after returning to action in the Ranji Trophy 2024.
On Friday, February 16, Gaikwad played a brilliant knock against Services at the Palam A Ground, Model Sports Complex in Delhi.
Although he missed out on scoring a hundred, he looked in impressive form. Gaikwad scored 96 runs off 161 balls with the help of 9 fours and a six.
After Maharashtra were reduced to 19 for 4 in 11.1 overs, Gaikwad put his head down and bailed his team out of jail. Left-arm spinner Arjun Sharma dismissed the batter in the 55th over of Maharashtra’s innings.
Gaikwad made sure that Maharashtra put up a decent score of 225 in 79 overs on the board. Gaikwad also got support from Digvijay Patil, who scored 42 off 75, and Taranjitsingh Dhillon, who chipped in with a handy 34-run knock lower down the order.
Why was Ruturaj Gaikwad out of action?
Back in December 2023, Gaikwad sustained an injury to his right ring finger when India and South Africa faced in the second ODI of the 3-match series. Thereafter, he went to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore to start his recovery.
In 6 ODIs and 19 T20Is until now, since his debut back in July 2021, Gaikwad has scored 115 and 500 runs respectively, with a century and 4 half-centuries to his name. The youngster is also set to play for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.
As far as the match against Services was concerned, Arshin Kulkarni and Sachin Dhas also played for Maharashtra. Opening the batting, Arshin only scored 2 runs off 21 balls before Varun Choudhary dismissed him.
Sachin, on the other hand, hit a four and a six to score 19 runs off 46 balls before Arjun Sharma got him out. Both Arshin and Sachin were a part of the Indian team that finished as the runners-up in the U19 World Cup in South Africa.
Tune In
