Mumbai 270 and 83 for 3 (Anand 27*, Dube 12*, Dubey 2-26) trail Vidarbha 383 and 292 (Rathod 151, Mulani 6-85) by 323 runs

But that job got that much tougher as they ended the day in Nagpur on 73 for 3, with Ajinkya Rahane, the captain, being dismissed in the last half hour. Shivam Dube, and not Suryakumar Yadav, came out to bat at No. 5 to join first-innings centurion Akash Anand. It wasn’t clear if Suryakumar was suffering from a niggle – he was off the field for the entire duration of Vidarbha’s batting innings.

All three wickets fell to the left-arm spinners. Harsh Dubey, the season’s highest wicket-taker who surpassed the 60-wicket mark in the first innings, accounted for Mhatre and Lad, while Parth Rekhade, who triggered a mammoth collapse in the first innings with the wickets of Rahane, Suryakumar and Dube in the space of two overs, dismissed Rahane with one that kept low.

But the story of Vidarbha’s day lay in how Rathod ground Mumbai’s bowling to construct his century, first with Akshay Wadkar and then with Rekhade. Rathod and Wadkar lifted a floundering innings from 56 for 4, adding 158 before Wadkar’s dismissal prior to lunch opened up the game again.

Having dug in to make a half-century of 200 balls, Wadkar was out bowled off a beauty from Shams Mulani as he played down the wrong line to one that turned away sharply. Dubey and Darshan Nalkande soon fell to the spinners as it became clear the surface was now beginning to open up and aid spinners if they were prepared to bowl into the rough created at both ends.

Not until the No. 10 was dismissed that Rathod looked to play a shot in anger – this partly stemmed from the confidence of having someone as accomplished as Rekhade, who was the No. 3 in the first innings, come in at No. 9. Rathod brought up his 150 shortly before being the last man out, by which time their lead crossed 400. Mulani finished with figures of 6 for 85 across 44 overs.

Vidarbha quickly turned to their spinners with the new ball and Dubey got it to turn and kick off the rough, even as the odd ball kept low. This played a part in each of the three dismissals. All said, Anand, fresh off a century in the first innings, looked compact and showed a solid defence to finish unbeaten on 27, with Dube on 12 as Mumbai have to do something that has never been done before, on the final day, to try and gun for title No. 43.

“You could say this is a very important tournament for a coach who has to make those tough calls in terms of transitioning from the legacy players to the others,” Kumble said. “But that’s the job of the coach, to make those hard decisions.

“This tournament could determine where those seniors would go, and where India would look at making those changes. Win or lose, you need these tough calls to be made at the earliest. You need to start looking ahead in white-ball cricket, especially at the 2027 World Cup.”

Kumble stressed on the need for Gambhir to introduce young blood in the squad and ensure the new group of players have “at least 20-25 matches together” before the next ODI World Cup.

“In any World Cup, you’re looking at building a squad that has played at least 20 or 25 matches together. That’s when you understand the nuances of match situations, and who to rely on. Ideally, at the end of this tournament, you must start looking ahead to the next World Cup. Do the seniors make it there? Or do we give the opportunity to youngsters to take the team forward in the shorter formats and build a strong unit? These are questions Gambhir needs to address.

“He (Gambhir) has a fresh, young team and plenty of players to choose and build from, so he needs to organically start preparing for the 2027 World Cup. In T20Is, he’s done well. Suryakumar Yadav has been a great captain. The next World Cup is still two years from now, and the new set of players will need a consistent run of games playing with each other, to understand many things like the batting order, match situation, and tactics.”

Gujarat 429 for 7 (Panchal 148, Jaymeet 74*, Saxena 4-135) trail Kerala 457 (Azharuddeen 177*, Nagwaswalla 3-81) by 28 runs

On Friday, he’ll have a chance to put impactful performances like those to shade, if he can build on his unbeaten 74 to help Gujarat pocket the 28 runs they need for the decisive first-innings lead against Kerala. The first innings hasn’t yet been decided in the game, but the scorecard hardly reveals how fascinating this slow burn of a contest has been – purely for the contrasting approach of both sides.

Gujarat’s hopes of a lead had all but vanished at 357 for 7. Jaymeet and Siddharth Desai, the left-arm spin allrounder, have since put on 72 in 36.4 overs, batting through the final session, to keep Gujarat’s hopes of making their first final since 2016-17 alive.

When stumps were drawn, Kerala’s spinners two frontline spinners – Jalaj Saxena and Aditya Sarwate – had bowled a combined 97 out of the 154 overs. Jalaj, who bowled unchanged right through the morning session, bowled 61 of those himself, to have figures of 4 for 137 – a spell that could yet prove to be the turning point if Kerala go on to nip out the three remaining wickets early to take the first-innings honours.

Resuming on 222 for 1, Kerala struck early when Manan Hingrajia was lbw to Saxena’s straighter one from around the stumps. The ball of the day, however, was the one Saxena bowled to dismiss the set Panchal, the ball ripping in from the rough to dip and beat Panchal’s inside edge to crash into the stumps. Then he had Urvil Patel stumped after beating him in flight and skid. At this point, Kerala were gung ho, as Gujarat slipped to 292 for 4.

Hemang Patel, the bowling allrounder who came in as a concussion sub for Ravi Bishnoi, earned a promotion up the order and walloped a quick-fire 28. The decision to replace Bishnoi was made after he experienced delayed concussion this morning, for a fielding effort on Day 3 where the ball bounced onto his forehead as he tried to stop the ball at point.

Hemang’s impetus for quick runs briefly put Kerala on the back foot, but an attempt too play one shot too many had him miscue a hoick that was brilliantly taken at square third man by substitute Shoun Roger. When Chintan Gaja was lbw, a decision that was upheld through DRS, Gujarat were right on the edge. Until they were brought back to life by Jaymeet, who stands in the way of Kerala and a maiden Ranji final.

“Between 2019 and now there’s too much difference and just recently we beat them [South Africa] in Sharjah – 2-1 – so we have that confidence with us and we are not under pressure anyway,” Shahidi said at his press conference on Thursday. “Because right now we are focusing what we can do in this tournament and I believe that our team is more ready for this tournament and we are focusing on our own team. There is no pressure on us.”

“First of all, about people here – there are a lot of Afghans,” Shahidi said. “They live here in Karachi and in Pakistan and also a lot of Pashtun people, I think, they support us. So yeah, yesterday there was a lot of crowds shouting for us [during training] and it feels good and it give us confidence that we have supporters here and about our performance.”

“We are doing very good and, in this tournament, we are here to compete here and our aim is to win the final,” Shahidi said. “We are not here just to participate here in this tournament. We are definitely 100% looking to win this event and at the same time because we played a lot of quality cricket from last two years and it’s a good chance for us because the boys are very experienced and these conditions are also suitable for us. So we have a good chance and let’s start it from tomorrow and hopefully we start with the win and we go with the same momentum throughout the tournament.”

“[But] we’ve also had a good look at them – I think probably a similar team that we played against in Sharjah that will be coming again. So, I guess we kind of know what to expect.”

Bavuma said the challenge for his bowlers in this tournament would be to keep their discipline on batting-friendly tracks. “I think in terms of the conditions here, we’ve had a nice look at what to expect. Probably batter-friendly wickets and I think quite a nice challenge for the bowlers. Our challenge as a bowling unit is to be one of the more disciplined and precise bowling units. I guess always look for opportunities to take wickets.

“From a batting point of view, scoreboard pressure is a big thing. Guys getting in, making sure they go get big so we can challenge for those 330-340-350 type of scores.”

Shahidi on playing in Afghanistan: ‘Hopefully that day comes’

“I have answered this in Pashto but let me say it again because in media I heard a lot from other countries that they [Afghanistan] don’t have facilities, they don’t have stadiums, they don’t have academies. It’s totally wrong,” Shahidi said. “We have good facilities. We have cricket academies. We have High Performance Centre in Kabul and Jalalabad and also, we have stadiums in every zone of Afghanistan. So, we have the facilities to call a team to come to Afghanistan but in our country there were some security issues that’s why other countries are not coming but hopefully soon, as soon as possible, one of the countries will come to Afghanistan and you will see the crowd also.

“When we play domestic cricket, it’s fully packed. Even people wait outside the stadium and try to come and watch the domestic game, like more than 50,000, 40,000 or 30,000 people coming for the finals of an event. I know that if any team come to Afghanistan, there will be like thousands of people, fans come and arrive to the stadium because there is a lot of craze for cricket. There are a lot of people who love cricket. So hopefully that day comes and hopefully it comes soon.”

*This story was updated after the South Africa press conference.

Joe Root has been England’s first-choice No. 3 for the best part of a decade, but slid down to No. 4 in the final match of their recent ODI series in India – which they lost 3-0 – and will retain that role against Australia. Smith has only batted at No. 5 or 6 in his seven-match ODI career to date, but will be thrown into a new role in his first match at an ICC event.

England struggled to balance their side after Jacob Bethell’s injury in India, looking one batter light in the second ODI and short on bowling in the third. They have retained their batting-heavy balance for the start of the Champions Trophy, with Liam Livingstone carded at No. 7, which means that Livingstone and Root will have to share 10 overs between them.

Root has batted at No. 4 in 56 of his 163 ODIs innings, but the vast majority were in the early years of his international career. The decision to bat Smith at No. 3 means that England’s engine room of Root, Harry Brook and Jos Buttler will bat from No. 4-6 rather than No. 3-5, bolstering their middle order after a series of collapses in India.

Smith only played two of England’s eight games on their white-ball tour to India after sustaining a calf injury which ruled him out of the end of the T20I series and all three ODIs. But he has been declared fit to face Australia, and will take the gloves ahead of Phil Salt – who will open with Ben Duckett – and Buttler.

Brydon Carse has also been passed fit after a toe injury ruled him out of the second and third India ODIs, and has been picked ahead of Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton and Saqib Mahmood. He will bat at No. 8 and is England’s third seamer, with Jofra Archer and Mark Wood set to share the new ball.

Australia’s Champions Trophy squad has been depleted by the late withdrawals of five senior players: Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh (all injured), plus Marcus Stoinis (retired from ODIs) and Mitchell Starc (personal reasons). The two sides last met in the format at the end of the 2024 English summer, with Australia winning the series 3-2.

England XI vs Australia: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Jamie Smith (wk), 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Jos Buttler, 7 Liam Livingstone, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood.

Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo

Big Picture: The game some didn’t want SA to play

Group B of the Champions Trophy gets underway with a fixture between the dream side of the last two tournaments, Afghanistan, and the one which has nightmares about the number of times it has not got its hands on the trophy, South Africa.

Headlining both outfits are explosive batting line-ups, with Afghanistan’s power at the top in an opening pair of Ibrahim Zadran and Rahmanullah Gurbaz and South Africa’s in the middle order. That makes the match-ups between South Africa’s seamers and the Afghan top order and Afghanistan’s spinners and the South African middle order the ones to watch for.

South Africa: LLLLL (last five completed matches, most recent first)
Afghanistan: WWWLW

In the spotlight: South Africa’s experience and Afghanistan’s spinners

South Africa could be forced to bench both Ryan Rickelton and Tristan Stubbs in what is an already strong batting line-up. Aiden Markram’s more-than-part-time offspin means they may consider only one specialist spinner in Keshav Maharaj, which will create room for both seam bowling allrounders – Wiaan Mulder and Marco Jansen – and two other frontline quicks.

South Africa (possible): 1 Temba Bavuma (capt) 2 Tony de Zorzi, 3 Rassie van der Dussen, 4 Aiden Markram, 5 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 6 David Miller, 7 Wiaan Mulder, 8 Marco Jansen, 9 Corbin Bosch, 10 Keshav Maharaj 11 Kagiso Rabada

Ibrahim Zadran will return to the Afghan XI after last playing for them in March. He has been out with an ankle injury but has had some time at the crease in the ILT20. With AM Ghazanfar out with a back problem, they will have to choose between left-arm wristspinner Noor Ahmed, who had success at the SA20, and left-arm fingerspinner Nangeyalia Kharote. That would give them a variety of spin options, alongside Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi in the team and four seam bowlers to boot.

Afghanistan: (possible) 1 Ibrahim Zadran, 2 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 3 Rahmat Shah, 4 Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), 5 Azmatullah Omarzai, 6 Gulbadin Naib, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Noor Ahmad/Nangeyalia Kharote, 10 Naveed Zadran, 11 Fazalhaq Farooqi

“Like all the tournaments, we will come in with the prospect of seeing ourselves in the final but eventually obviously getting over the line. The nice thing is that we have guys with that experience and there’s no there’s no real baggage that exists amongst the guys. There’s no negativity from the fact that we haven’t been able to be successful in other ICC events. There’s a lot more of a positivity and confidence in terms of our ability or how far we can go within the tournament.”
Temba Bavuma says South Africa do not carry scars from previous tournaments into this one