Jalaj Saxena who plays for Kerela, reached a huge feat as he became the first player to take 400 wickets and score 6000 runs in the history of Ranji Trophy. Saxena achieved the milestone on Wednesday while taking part in the game against Uttar Pradesh (UP) at St Xavier’s College Ground, Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram.
During the first day of the game, the star all-rounder scalped the wicket of Nitish Rana to complete the record. After Kerala skipper Sachin Baby won the toss and decided to bowl first, Jalaj started tormenting the Uttar Pradesh’s batters. He took the wicket of skipper Aryan Juyal (23 off 57) and followed up by taking the wickets of Madhav Kaushik (13 off 58), Siddharth Yadav (19 off 25) and Rana to reach the feat. The star off-spinner also scalped one more wicket and recorded the 29th five-wicket haul in the Ranji Trophy history.
Saxena who comes from Madhya Pradesh became the 13th player to pick 400 wickets in the history of Ranji Trophy. Talking about the ongoing Ranji season, he has made 101 runs from two matches so far at an average of 50.50 with the help of one half-century.
Saxena also picked up 13 wickets in four innings at an average of 19.09 and an economy of 2.85. The stalwart player started his domestic career for Madhya Pradesh back in 2005 and collected 4041 runs while also snapping 159 wickets for the team. He then shifted his base to Kerala during the 2016-17 season.
As of now, Jalaj has taken part in 143 first-class where he has scored 6795 runs at an average of 33.97 with the help of 14 hundreds and 33 fifties. Star all-rounder has also picked up 452 wickets at an average of 25.68 with 30 five-wicket hauls and eight ten-wicket hauls to his name.