After the spin duo – Shahbaz Nadeem and Sunny Gupta - had bowled Odisha out for 152, Jharkhand’s Anand Singh and Sumit Kumar helped the team to nine without loss at the end of day’s play. At stumps, the Saurabh Tiwary-led team were trailing by 143 runs with all wickets in tact as they fight to grab the top spot in the Group B.
While both Jharkhand and Odisha having qualified for the quarter-finals of the Ranji Trophy 2016-17, the former can claim the top-spot in the Group B with an outright win against the latter. Odisha, who have 22 points and are at No 3, will continue to remain at the same position while Jharkhand who have 32 points against their name can upstage Karnataka from the pole position only with an outright win.
After Tiwary elected to field in the four-day game, spinners - Shahbaz Nadeem (4/31) and Gupta (3/56) - dismantled the Odisha lineup on first day. After ending the opening stand for 46 with the wicket of Ranjit Singh, Nadeem claimed Govind Podder later in the over. He then ran out Abhishek Yadav a couple of overs later while Vikash accounted for Subhransu Senapati to reduce Odisha to 48 for four at the stroke of lunch.
Jharkhand then continued to dominate through the second session and had Odisha wobbling on 137 for nine at Tea. Off-spinner Sunny Gupta claimed Biplab Samantray, Saurabh Rawat and Suryakant Pradhan while the left-arm spinner picked the wickets of Sandeep Pattanaik and Deepak Behera.
Basant Mohanty (17*) then strove to extend the innings with Dhiraj Singh. Plodding on the pair had taken the team to 152 when Dhiraj was trapped lbw by Ajay late in the last session of the day to wrap-up the innings.
Remaining unbeaten, Anand (4*) and Sumit (5*) saw the Jharkhand innings through to stumps.
Brief scores: Odisha 1st inn 152/10 in 84 overs (S Pattanaik 43, S Nadeem 4/31, S Gupta 3/56); Jharkhand 1st inn 9/0 in 4 overs. Trail by 143 runs
