Pacers ruled the first day’s play as 13 wickets fell at the Eden Gardens in the Ranji Trophy 2017-18 semi-final between Vidarbha and Karnataka. While the Vinay Kumar-led team skittled out Vidarbha for 185, the opponents claimed the Karnataka top-order early in the innings leaving the match hanging in the balance at the end of day’s play.
In the other semi-final, although Bengal lost their in-form batsman A Eswaran with eight runs on the board, useful contributions by the middle-order helped the side to a respectable total against Delhi.
Here are the highlights of the day:
Bengal vs Delhi in Pune: Sudip Chatterjee’s patient 162-ball 83 helped Bengal post a respectable 269 for seven on the first day after Manoj Tiwary elected to bat against Delhi.
Navdeep Saini denied Bengal a good start by accounting for Eswaran in the fourth over of the day. A while later, Abhishek Kumar Raman was caught by Vikas Mishra off his own bowling leaving the side on 54 for two.
Writtick Chatterjee then joined Sudip in building the innings. The duo took Bengal to Lunch at 97 for two. The Writtick-Sudip pair had added 78 for the third wicket when Vikas Tokas struck to end the blossoming partnership; he sent back Writtick leaving the team on 132 for three.
Tiwary then joined Sudip in carrying the innings forward and they had taken the side to the 200-run mark when the skipper was removed by Manan Sharma. Nine runs later, the No 3 bat’s resistance too was ended by Manan. Anustup Mujumdar then helped add 42 runs for the sixth wicket with Shreevats Goswami until he was castled by Saini. A bit later, Kulwant Khejroliya claimed B Amit.
When play ended for the day, Goswami was batting with Aamir Gani.
Scorecard -
http://www.bcci.tv/ranji-trophy-2017-18/match/89Vidarbha vs Karnataka in Kolkata: Abhimanyu Mithun’s five-for in the second session helped wrap-up the Vidarbha innings at Tea. However, having bowled out the Faiz Fazal-led team for 185, Karnataka were left reeling at 21 for three by Umesh Yadav and R Gurbani.
R Samarth was sent back by Gurbani with Karnataka on 17 and in the next over Mayank Agarwal was trapped lbw by Umesh. Without a run added to the scoreline, Gurbani rattled Nischal D’s stumps in the following over to push the side on the back-foot.
At the end of day’s play, Karnataka were 36 for three with Karun Nair (6*) and CM Gautam (9*) in the middle. The team were trailing by 149 runs when play ended for the day.
Earlier, after Fazal elected to bat, he was out leg-before wicket to his opposite number leaving Vidarbha on 22 for one. 27 runs later, SR Ramaswamy was sent back by Stuart Binny. Ganesh Satish then joined Wasim Jaffer to take the team to Lunch at 94 for two.
However, in the third over after lunch, Abhimanyu Mithun dealt a double blow. He accounted for Ganesh Satish and crashed A Wankhade’s stumps to leave Vidarbha on 99 for four. From there on it was downhill for Vidarbha as the Karnataka pacers struck at quick intervals. Nine runs later, Jaffer was sent back by Sreenath Arvind. A Wadkar and A Sarvate then added 22 until the former was sent back by Vinay.
Sarvate then worked to forge a partnership with A Wakhare in an effort to keep the innings in the fray. The pair had put together 41 runs when Abhimanyu Mithun struck. Wakhare edged the pacer to the wicketkeeper leaving his side on 171 for seven and the bowler knocked back Gurbani’s stumps off the next delivery. Although he missed out on a hat-trick, A Mithun forced an edge from Umesh off the last ball of the over through to the slips to leave the side reeling on 171 for nine.
14 runs later, Shreyas Gopal claimed Sarvate to wrap-up the Vidarbha innings.
Scorecard - http://www.bcci.tv/ranji-trophy-2017-18/match/90
