The Sarfaraz Khan juggernaut continued to roll while the bowlers had a lot to cherish on the first day in some of the other round seven matches in Ranji Trophy 2019-20 on Monday.
Here’s how the day panned out:
Sarfaraz Khan took off from where he had left against Uttar Pradesh and starred in a yet another recovery act as Mumbai took on Himachal Pradesh in Dharamsala. The right-hander scored an unbeaten 226 off 213 balls, hitting 32 fours and 4 sixes, while skipper Aditya Tare chipped in with 62 as Mumbai ended the first day at 372/5 in 75 overs after being reduced to 16/3.
On a day when the former Australian skipper Steve Waugh was in the house at the Eden Gardens, Anustup Majumdar’s 94* and Shreevats Goswami’s 59 helped Bengal score 286/5 against Delhi on the opening day. The two joined forces when their team was 100/4 and went on to add runs 117 together before Goswami got out. Majumdar was then joined by Shahbaz Ahmed and the two put up an unbeaten 69-run partnership.
In another game in Kolkata, Sedezhalie scored a hundred, but G Lalbiakvela’s five-wicket haul meant that Mizoram restricted Nagaland to 243 before ending the day at 8/0. In Ongole, Kerala were bowled out for 162 against Andhra as Smd Rafi picked up five wickets. Andhra ended the day at 57/1. In Surat, meanwhile, Gujarat bowlers shared the spoils to bowl out the defending champions Vidarbha for 142. In response, Gujarat scored 88 runs for the loss of a wicket.
Meanwhile, R Vinay Kumar continued his impressive run of form, scalping six wickets, as Pondicherry bowled out Chandigarh for 134. However, the Manan Vohra-led side fought back on the back of Shreshth Nirmohi’s three-wicket haul and reduced Pondicherry to 37/4 before stumps on the first day.
If it was R Vinay Kumar for Pondicherry, it was Manoj Ingale for Maharashtra who picked up six wickets as Tripura were bundled out for 121 in Agartala. While M B Mura Singh’s three wickets had reduced Maharashtra to 53/5, Ankit Bawane’s 39* and Vishant More’s 30* helped Maharashtra go past Tripura’s first-innings total, scoring 127/5 before stumps.
In Patna, Aditya Singhania and Mark Ingty picked up four and three wickets respectively as Meghalaya restricted Bihar to 208. Bihar were in trouble at 63/5 before their lower-order, especially skipper Ashutosh Aman’s 72, added 145 runs to help the team cross 200-run mark. Meghalaya scored 18 runs without losing a wicket before the end of the day’s play.
In Hyderabad, the bowlers led the charge as Rajasthan bowled out Hyderabad for 171. Rajasthan ended the day at 2/0. Meanwhile, Yash Dubey scored 70 but Ankit Rajpoot and Saurabh Kumar, who scalped three wickets each, helped Uttar Pradesh bowl out Madhya Pradesh for 230. However, Ravi Yadav, playing his first First-Class match, picked up a hat-trick in his first over to reduce Uttar Pradesh to 22/3 at stumps.
After a delayed start in New Delhi RSPB, Karnataka’s left-arm seamer Prateek Jain and Abhimanyu Mithun picked up four and two wickets each to leave Railways reeling at 98/6. Railways were 45/6 at one stage before Arindam Ghosh and Avinash Yadav took Railways close to hundred.
In Vadodara, the bowlers had a field day during the Baroda versus Saurashtra match as 16 wickets fell on the opening day. Jaydev Unadkat picked up six wickets as the last year’s finalists bowled out Baroda for 154. However, Lukman Meriwala, who scalped four wickets, kept Baroda’s hopes of taking the first-innings lead alive, reducing Saurashtra to 114/6.
In the Group C match in Jammu, skipper Harpreet Singh Bhatia’s 116 guided Chhattisgarh to 270/4 against Jammu and Kashmir. Jiwanjot Singh, Abhimanyu Chauhan and Amandeep Khare also chipped in with some important contributions of 42, 51 and 45* respectively.
In the other Group C clash, Odisha ended the opening day at 215/3 against Assam on the back of fifties from Shantanu Mishra, Anurag Sarangi and Govinda Poddar. In the Services versus Jharkhand clash, Rahul Shukla’s six-wicket haul restricted Services to 232/8.
In Dehradun, 15 wickets fell on the opening day of the Uttarakhand versus Haryana clash. After being bowled out for 109, Uttarakhand fought back and reduced Haryana to 50/5 before stumps on the back of Agrim Tiwari’s four-wicket haul.
In Porvorim, the opening pair of Sumiran Amonkar and Vaibhav Govekar scored 160 runs each as Goa made an impressive start against Arunachal Pradesh, scoring 376/2 before stumps.
In the Plate Group clash between Sikkim and Manipur, the bowlers had a field day. As many as 21 wickets fell on the first day. After Manipur bowled Sikkim for 169 on the back of Rex Singh’s four wickets, Ishwar Chaudhary’s six-wicket haul helped Sikkim secure a first-innings lead of 78 runs. Sikkim, who had to negotiate two overs before stumps, then lost a wicket scoring a run.
