Veteran all-rounder Jalaj Saxena achieved a historic Ranji Trophy milestone while playing for Kerala against Uttar Pradesh in the fourth-round fixture at St Xavier's College Ground, Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram. Saxena became the first player in the history of the tournament to complete 400 wickets and 6000 runs on Wednesday.
The veteran cricketer completed 6000 runs in the tournament in the previous round against Kolkata and completed the milestone of 400 wickets on the opening day of the fourth round when he dismissed Nitish Rana via stumping.
Last season he joined the elite list when he became only the fourth player in the history of India's domestic cricket to complete the double of 9000 runs and 600 wickets across all formats.
Kerala skipper Sachin Baby won the toss and elected to bowl first after which Saxena ran through the UP’s batting lineup to complete the first innings with figures of 5/56
Besides Rana, Saxena picked up wickets of opposition captain Aryan Juyal (23 off 57), Madhav Kaushik (13 off 58), Siddharth Yadav (19 off 25) and Piyush Chawla (10 off 18 balls)to achieve the feat. The five-wicket haul was his 29th in the Ranji Trophy career.
Jalaj Saxena's Ranji Trophy career
The newly achieved milestone has made Saxena the 13th player in Ranji Trophy history to take 400 wickets. In the ongoing season, Saxena has scored 101 runs from two matches so far at an average of 50.50 with one half-century to his name.With the ball, he’s scalped 13 wickets from four innings at an average of 19.09 and an economy of 2.85.
Speaking of his decorated career, Saxena started playing for home state of Madhya Pradesh way back in 2005. The veteran all-rounder scored 4041 runs so far while also picking 159 wickets for the home team before shifting to Kerala in the 2016-17 season.
In the 143 first-class matches played in his career, Saxena has scored 6795 runs at an average of 33.97 with 14 hundreds and 33 fifties to his name. The off-spinner has also scalped 452 wickets at an average of 25.68 and an economy of 2.74 with 30 five-wicket hauls and eight ten-wicket hauls.
