Kolkata: Baroda spoiled Mumbai’s moment of celebrating the occasion of it’s 500th Ranji Trophy match as they skittled out the 41-time champions for just 171 runs on the first day in Mumbai on Thursday.
Batting first, the hosts didn’t get off to a good start as prodigious batsman Prithvi Shaw was dismissed in the very first over by Atit Sheth. The right-arm medium pacer did more damage as he sent back veteran India batsman Ajinkya Rahane for a duck to put more pressure on the hosts. The right-handed Shreyas Iyer, who recently made his T20I debut for India in the series against New Zealand fought well for 28 runs which included four fours but his resistance was short lived as he was dismissed by Lukman Meriwala in the 16th over to leave Mumbai reeling at 54/3.
The wickets continued to fall as both Sheth and Meriwala bowled well in tandem to destroy the Mumbai batting. The duo claimed five wickets each as Baroda now clearly has the upper hand in the game. Skipper Aditya Tare was the best batsman for the hosts as he scored a 82-ball 50 which included eight fours and fought a lone battle with the bat where the other willow-wielders failed to make an impact.
In reply, Baroda ended the first day on 63/1 with Vishnu Solanki batting on 32 accompanied by Aditya Waghmode on 15.
In Kalyani, it was Vidarbha, who dominated their Group D clash against Bengal. Home team skipper Manoj Tiwary won the toss and sent Vidarbha to bat but, this decision clearly backfired as skipper Faiz Fazal led from the front and registered a mammoth 259-run opening stand with Sanjay Ramaswamy. Sairaj Bahutule’s side clearly missed the services of one of their main pacers-Mohammad Shami as no bowler looked threatening.
It was a long day for Bengal in the field as they had to toil hard for a wicket and they finally found some success as Ashok Dinda trapped Fazal lbw for a well-made 142. Ramaswamy remained unbeaten on 117 and he and the experienced Wasim Jaffer (18 n.o) would look forward to dominate proceedings once again on the second day.
Summarised scores-
Mumbai: Baroda 62/1 (Vishnu Solanki 32 n.o, Aditya Waghmode 15 n.o; Royston Dias 1/15) trail Mumbai 171 (Aditya Tare 50, Shreyas Iyer 28; Atit Sheth 5/50) by 108 runs.
Kalyani: Vidarbha 285/1 (Faiz Fazal 142, Sanjay Ramaswamy 117 n.o; Ashok Dinda 1/62) vs Bengal
Guwahati: Assam 25/0 (Rahul Hazarika 11 n.o, Rishav Das 10 n.o; Mohammad Saif (0/4) trail Uttar Pradesh 349 all out (Saurabh Kumar 133, Upendra Yadav 127; Rajjakuddin Ahmed 3/103) by 324 runs.
Agartala: Andhra Pradesh 252/2 (Prashanth Kumar 120 n.o, Hanuma Vihari 62; Manisankar Murasingh 1/26) vs Tripura.
Jamshedpur: Jammu and Kashmir 357/6 (Puneet Bisht 101 n.o, Shubham Khajuria 101; Sunny Gupta 2/85) vs Jharkhand
Delhi: Services 228/8 (Nakul Verma 64, Vikas Yadav 61 n.o; Heramb Parab 3/35) vs Goa.
Dharamsala: Chattisgarh 91/1 (Rishabh Tiwari 46 n.o, Ashutosh Singh 40 n.o; Sidarth Sharma 1/26) trail Himachal Pradesh 175 (Rishi Dhawan 35, Pankaj Jaiswal 25; Pankaj Rao 3/52) by 84 runs.
Pune: Maharashtra 249/5 (Ankit Bawne 92, Rohit Motwani 52 n.o; Amit Mishra 2/48) vs Railways.
Alur: Karnataka 348/4 (Mayank Agarwal 169 n.o, Manish Pandey 74; Navdeep Saini 1/49) vs Delhi
Rohtak: Haryana 99/7 (Rajat Paliwal 32, Shivam Chauhan 28; Pankaj Singh 3/25) vs Rajasthan.
Rajkot: Saurashtra 311/1 (Snell Patel 156 n.o, Cheteshwar Pujara 115 n.o; Piyush Chawla 1/64) vs Gujarat.
Cuttack: Tamil Nadu 292/3 (Murali Vijay 140, N Jagadeesan 88; Suryakant Pradhan 1/48) vs Odisha