Rasool hits a sparkling century as Punjab get slender lead

Vadodara: Skipper Perveez Rasool led from the front with a scintillating century as Jammu and Kashmir fought back gallantly to leave their Ranji Trophy quarter-final match against strong contenders Punjab evenly poised here today.

In reply to Punjab's first innings score of 304, Jammu and Kashmir rode on Rasool's gutsy 103 off 137 balls before folding up for 277, conceding a slender first innings lead of 27 runs on the second day.

Quarter final entering crucial stage, says Rasool

J&K seamers Umar Nazir and Mohammed Mudhasir then struck two early blows to remove the in-form openers Jiwanjot Singh (8) and Manan Vohra (7) cheaply. At stumps, Punjab were struggling at 15 for two, having an overall lead of 42.

With Ranji quarter-finals being a five-day affair, there is every possibility that this slender first innings lead will be of little consequence as the match is expected to have an outright result with three full days left.

The day belonged to Rasool, who showed that he is ready to go one up on Harbhajan as he hit 11 fours and a lovely six over deep mid-wicket off veteran India off-spinner's bowling.

He completed his fifth first-class century with a couple of boundaries. The ton came off 131 balls.

Rasool had two important partnerships during the course of the Jammu and Kashmir innings.

The first was a 81-run stand with in-form opener Adil Rishi (65) for the fourth wicket after J&K were reduced to 62 for three.

Rishi and Rasool carried the team to 141 before Yuvraj Singh trapped the opener leg before with an arm ball. Rishi hit nine fours and one six in his 108-ball innings. Rishi's total runs this season has gone upto 643 but Rasool today overtook him as he completed 650 runs in the current season.Once Rishi was out, Punjab got two quick wickets with Majid Dar edging one off pacer VRV Singh to Yuvraj in the slips and Hardeep Singh offering a simple return catch to opposition captain Harbhajan Singh.

At 168 for six, Punjab were looking at a sizeable lead but Rasool started a swift counter-attack in company of Samiullah Beigh (37). The duo added 86 runs for the seventh wicket as Jammu and Kashmir crossed 250-run mark.

Rasool's valiant effort finally came to an end when Punjab's premier seamer Sandeep Sharma (4/46) bowled a fuller delivery that kept low and the J&K skipper misjudged the line of the delivery to get bowled.

Sharma then got into the act by cleaning up Beigh and then trapping Mudhasir (0) with an incoming delivery. At 265 for nine, it was young Ram Dayal (18), who had hit some lusty blows including four boundaries, took the score to 277 before Manpreet Gony got last-man Umar Nazir caught by Manan Vohra to keep the lead down to 27.

J&K bowlers came out all guns blazing in the 10 overs that they bowled with Mudhasir removing Jiwanjot caught by Beigh while Nazir got Manan to drag one back onto his stumps.

Brief Score: Punjab 304 & 15/2.

J&K 277 (Perveez Rasool 103, Adil Rishi 65, Samiullah Beigh 37, Sandeep Sharma 4/46).

Punjab lead by 42 runs with 8 wickets remaining.

Rawat's unbeaten century gives Railways edge against Bengal

Rawat's unbeaten century gives Railways edge against Bengal

Kolkata: Railways' experienced campaigner Mahesh Rawat proved to be the thorn in the flesh for Bengal as he stood tall with an unbeaten century to lead the visiting team's recovery on day two of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal here today.

Propelled by Rawat's unbeaten 105 in an undefeated 191-run partnership with Arindam Ghosh (78 batting) Railways ended day two at 233/5, trailing Bengal by only 84 runs with five wickets in hand.

In reply to Bengal's challenging first innings total of 317, Railways were tottering at 42/5 after losing three wickets for four runs just after lunch when Ashoke Dinda was firing on all cylinders with veteran Shib Shankar Paul giving a good back-up.

But the Railways wicketkeeper-batsman, counter-attacked Dinda with six successive classical boundaries before turning around the match for the visitors.

The flurry of boundaries against Bengal's strike bowler derailed the home side and it failed to recover from the slide. Luck too went in favour of Rawat, who survived a run-out scare when he was on 28.

Barring this, it was a chance-less knock by Rawat and he executed his shots to perfection. Bengal's bowling was reduced to a two-pace attack in Dinda and Paul with Sourav Sarkar lacking in intensity.

In no time, Rawat raced to his ninth 50-plus score from 10 matches this season, notching up his 28th first-class half century in 48 balls.

Such was his domination that Rawat scored 78 runs in (18) fours and sixes in his 125-ball unbeaten innings. The batsman has over 700 runs under his belt at an average of over 70 this season.

In local-lad Ghosh, Rawat found a perfect ally as the two leading run-getters of Railways staged yet another recovery act.The duo notched up the 100-partnership in 37.1 overs and Ghosh also got a reprieve, dropped on 44 at the second slip by Sudip Chatterjee.

The former Bengal batsman, Ghosh, steadily completed his fourth first class half-century in 117 balls to frustrate the home camp.

With no assistance from Sarkar, Shukla went back to Dinda and Paul towards the fag end of the day and Rawat was happy to step up the attack again to notch his third century of the season.

Rawat hit two consecutive boundaries off Dinda to race to 99 before notching the century in style with a deft single.

Earlier, resuming at 274 for eight, Bengal's first innings folded for 317 in less than an hour this morning after Saha's defiant innings came to an end for 87 (1x6, 11x4) when the wicketkeeper-batsman was caught by Kartik at second slip off the bowling of Upadhyay.

Dinda was the first to be dismissed in the third over of the day when he was castled by Mali without any addition to his overnight total of 17.

Just when it looked like Bengal would fold inside 300, Paul produced a cameo of 14 not out in a 38-run last wicket partnership.

Brief Scores:

Bengal 317; 101.5 overs (Wriddhiman Saha 87; Anureet Singh 4/88).

Railways 233/5 (Mahesh Rawat 105 batting, Arindam Ghosh 78 batting; Ashok Dinda 3/83, Shib Shankar Paul 2/36).

Fiery Thakur flattens Maharashtra to put Mumbai on top

Fiery Thakur flattens Maharashtra to put Mumbai on top

Mumbai: Young Mumbai pacer Shardul Thakur produced an incisive four-wicket haul after the home team's tail wagged merrily to put the defending champions in total command of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Maharshtra here today.

Thakur bent his back on the bouncy Wankhede wicket and produced fiery spells, backed up by a very attacking umbrella field behind the wicket on both sides, to shake up the Maharashtra batting line up after Mumbai ran up a huge first innings total of 402.

Thakur, who went into his sixth game of the season with 21 wickets under his belt, ended the day with highly impressive figures of 4 for 62 that shook up Maharashtra who were reduced to 24 for 3 before recovering to 219 for 7 at stumps on day two of the five-day game.

The visitors' score was mainly built around the 115-run fourth wicket partnership in 146 balls between top-scorer Ankit Bawne (84) and Kedar Jadhav (51) whose dismissals within the space of half an hour post tea spelt further trouble for Maharashtra.

The batsmen holding fort at close were Shrikant Mundhe (14) and Akshay Darekar (16). Maharashtra were facing an uphill task as they were 183 runs behind the home team, with little batting left to come tomorrow.

The 22-year-old Thakur, in only his second season for the 40-time champions, packed off openers Harshad Khadiwale and rival captain Rohit Motwani cheaply in the first spell of four overs to push Maharashtra on the backfoot very early.

Motwani was leg before to a swinging full toss in the bowler's first over and then he had Khadiwale, the tournament's highest scorer with 930 runs in eight games in the league phase, caught at gully.

Thakur then came back after tea to grab two more wickets in his third spell, including that of top-scorer Bawne, who was lucky to survive a chance in the slip cordon off his bowling on 5 and then got another reprieve after he was bowled off a no-ball by the same bowler.

Its his third haul of four wickets in only his 11th first class game.In between these wickets, Mumbai captain and India pace spearhead Zaheer Khan took the very important wicket of Under 19 Asia Cup winning captain Vijay Zol, who looked pretty confident, and left-arm spinner Vishal Dabholkar sent back Jadhav, caught bat-pad behind the wicket by a diving wicket keeper Aditya Tare.

Zol's departure put Maharashtra in deep rut before Jadhav, playing cautiously, and the more attacking Bawne produced a partnership that stemmed the rot and took the score to 139 when the former got out. Jadhav batted for 108 minutes and hit 9 fours in his 66-ball knock.

Then Bawne, despite two lucky breaks earlier in his innings, needlessly tried to try and cut a rising ball going well over his head from Thakur to be caught behind. He faced 113 balls in his 130-minute essay and struck 12 fours and a six.

The departure of these two set batsmen within the space of 44 balls left Maharashtra struggling at 170 for 6. Later Javed Khan, the third seam bowler in the Mumbai attack, sent back Chirag Khurana for his first wicket with the visitors total nine short of 200.

Then Mundhe and Darekar stayed put till close to carry on the fight tomorrow. In the morning, overnight unbeaten batsmen Iqbal Abdulla (49 not out) and Zaheer Khan (39) kept Maharashtra on the field for the entire first session after Mumbai resumed at 306 for 7.

The eighth wicket duo added 62 runs in quick time, with Zaheer slamming off spin bowler Khurana for 14 runs in one over with the help of one six and two fours. Zaheer was finally out edging Shrikant Munde to the slip cordon after striking 4 fours and one six in 61 balls. Then Abdulla ran out of partners to remain unconquered one short of 50 after having faced 107 balls in his three-hour innings when Mumbai's first innings folded up on the stroke of lunch.

Mumbai's last three wickets added 102 runs. Samad Fallah was the most successful bowler for Maharashtra with figures of 4 for 103 while Anupam Sanklecha (3 for 77), Mundhe (2 for 85) and Darekar (1 for 60) shared the other wickets.

Mithun, Vinay shine as K'taka sniff first innings lead over UP

Mithun, Vinay shine as K'taka sniff first innings lead over UP

Bangalore: Seamers Abhimanyu Mithun and R Vinay Kumar wreaked havoc as Karnataka reduced Uttar Pradesh to 221 for nine, giving themselves a good chance to grab first innings lead, on the second day of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal match here today.

Mithun was the most successful bowler with figures of four for 70 but Vinay was the most difficult as he picked up three wickets after conceding 49 runs in 18 overs.

Mithun removed Prashant Gupa (0), Mohammad Kaif (0), Chawla (56) and Amit Mishra (4), while Vinay picked up Tanmay Srivastava (32), Mukul Dagar (13) and Eklavya Dwivedi (2).

Pacer H S Sharath and part-time spinner Robin Uthappa picked one wicket each. Sharath removed Ali Murtaza (1) caught behind by Gautam, who claimed first of the three catches in the day.

UP is still 128 runs behind Karnataka's first innings score of 349 and it is a clear-cut edge for the hosts as they have to get just one wicket at Chinnaswamy Stadium tomorrow.

For UP, Parvinder Singh was the lone crusader with the bat as he missed his century by eight runs. He was the last man to be dismissed by part-timer Robin Uthappa. He made 92 runs off 181 balls with 13 boundaries.

The 110-run partnership between Parvinder (92) and Piyush Chawla (56) for the seventh wicket raised hopes for the visitors to wriggle out of the turmoil, but inform Mithun had the latter caught behind by Chidambaram Gautam to bring back the game in their favour.

Earlier, UP picked up five wickets for just 52 runs to restrict Karnataka to 349 runs after they had ended the opening day at 297 for five.

The saving grace for the hosts in the morning session was when Gautam became the third batsman in the innings to belt a century. He faced 118 balls to reach his well-crafted 100 by cracking 16 boundaries, before he was castled by a medium pacer from Amit Mishra.

Abrar Kazi and Mithun were the other two batsmen who reached double figures, before they were sent back into the dressing room for 23 and 13, respectively.