Nagaland’s Nischal, Lemtur slam centuries to frustrate TN in Ranji Trophy
Underdogs Nagaland showed they are made of sterner stuff as their batters fought tooth and nail all day to score 365/5 and frustrate Tamil Nadu who would be fancying their chances of enforcing a follow-on after a mammoth 512-run first-innings total in a Ranji Trophy Group A match in Bengaluru on Monday.
After promising TN left-arm pacer Gurjapneet Singh had left Nagaland reeling at 150/4 on Sunday by taking all the wickets, including a hat-trick that had reduced the northeastern side to 3/9 early on, opener Dega Nischal and middle-order batter Imliwati Lemtur slammed fine centuries on Monday to frustrate the rival bowlers.
On a high-scoring wicket, overnight batter Nischal who was 80 not out, came back refreshed to add another 81 runs to be unbeaten on 161 (350 balls, 4×24), while veteran Nagaland batter Lemtur dug deep to score 115 not out (203 balls, 4×17, 6×3) as the side reduced the lead to 147 runs going into the final day.
Nischal and Lemtur’s unbeaten 205-run sixth-wicket partnership would now be weighing on Tamil Nadu skipper Sai Kishore’s mind, given that Nagaland now look quite capable of overhauling the rival’s mammoth first-innings total if they bat sensibly on the last day of the rubber.
Gurjapneet, who played two unofficial ODIs for India A against the touring Australia A side in Kanpur last month, could not get the vital breakthrough while the rest of the Tamil Nadu bowlers, barring left-arm spinner DT Chandrasekar who got the only success on the day, toiled all day without making inroads.
Yugandhar Singh, the only batter to fall on the day, added just nine runs to his overnight score of 58 before being dismissed by Chandrasekar on 67. The 20-year-old’s, 129-run fifth-wicket stand with Nischal on Sunday had provided stability to the Nagaland side after Gurjapneet’s hat-trick.
Nischal and all-rounder Lemtur batted patiently on Monday, playing the ball on merit without trying any audacious shot.
The 31-year-old left-arm spinner Lemtur was a revelation with the bat as he notched up his maiden century in his 43rd first-class match. Lemtur’s previous best was 61, with his batting average just over 13-per-game.
But on Monday, he gave Tamil Nadu a mighty scare, and their skipper Sai Kishore would he hoping to break the partnership as quickly as possible before Nagaland entertain the thought of taking the first-innings lead in the game.
Brief scores:
In Dimapur: Tamil Nadu 1st innings 512/3 decl in 115 overs vs Nagaland 365 for 5 in 127 overs (Dega Nischal 161 not out, Yugandhar Singh 67, Imliwati Lemtur 115 not out; Gurjapneet Singh 4/57).
In Vizianagaram: Baroda 1st innings 363 in 109 overs (Vishnu Solanki 132; Atit Sheth 86, Mahesh Pithiya 54; Kavuri Saiteja 4/71, Tripurana Vijay 3/63) vs Andhra 43 for 2 in 16 overs (Bhargav Bhatt 2/9).
In Nagpur: Jharkhand 1st innings 332 in 125.3 overs vs Vidarbha 239 for 2 in 88 overs (Aman Mokhade 145 not out, Dhruv Shorey 48).
In Kanpur: Odisha 1st innings: 243 all out in 77.1 overs vs Uttar Pradesh 380 for 6 in 128 overs (Madhav Kaushik 67, Karan Sharma 121, Aaradhya Yadav 101 retd hurt, Sambit Baral 3/52). PTI AM AM
Dhull, Doseja fifties extend Delhi’s lead to 329 against HP
Yash Dhull smashed an attractive 70 off only 59 balls while Ayush Doseja continued his good form with an unbeaten 62 as Delhi extended their overall lead to 329 runs against Himachal Pradesh on the third day of their Ranji Trophy group D match in New Delhi.
Play was called off early due to bad light as Delhi raced to 196 for 4 in just 32 overs courtesy Dhull and Doseja’s rollicking stand that yielded 125 runs in 19.3 overs.
This was after Delhi dismissed Himachal Pradesh for 297 in their first innings to ensure a first-innings lead of 133. Veteran pacer Navdeep Saini took 3 for 52 while young Money Grewal had 2 for 47 to show for his efforts.
Delhi are gunning for six points and one might see them declaring at the overnight score in order to get maximum overs on the final day to register an outright win.
Coming to bat in the second session, Delhi, in their bid to score quickly, were reduced to 53 for 3 when Dhull was joined by southpaw Doseja.
For around four overs they weren’t getting the big shots going but then Dhull started attacking with some crispy shots square off the wicket. The cheeky Doseja also followed suit with some deft shots off slow bowlers as the scorecard suddenly gained momentum.
Since the light deteriorated in the afternoon, the Dhull-Doseja pair knew that they have to up the ante.
At one point, HP skipper Ankush Bains spread his field to stop the steady flow of boundaries. Yet Dhull bisected the fielders stationed at deep point and deep extra cover boundary off pacer Vaibhav Arora.
The shot of the day was a bent knee slog sweep that sailed deep into the extra cover stand of off-spinner Mukul Negi’s bowling.
Dhull’s innings had eight fours and two sixes while Doseja hit eight boundaries.
Once the former India U19 captain was holed out, Doseja tried maintaining the momentum with Anuj Rawat for company. But it became so dark that umpires had to stop the proceedings.
Brief scores: Delhi 430 and 196/4 (Yash Dhull 70, Ayush Doseja 62 batting). HP 297 (Sidhant Purohit 70, Navdeep Saini 3/52).
Prithvi Shaw slams third fastest double ton
Opener Prithvi Shaw slammed the third fastest double century by an Indian batter in first-class cricket as Maharashtra set Chandigarh an imposing target of 464 on the third day of their Group B Ranji Trophy match in Chandigarh.
At stumps, Goa were 129 for one with Arjun Azad and skipper Manan Vohra batting on 63 and 53 respectively.
However, the day truly belonged to Shaw who got to his double century in just 141 balls in Maharashtra’s second innings of the match.
He is now only behind Ravi Shastri (123 balls vs Baroda in 1985) and Tanmay Agarwal (119 balls vs Arunachal Pradesh in 2024).
Maharashtra declared their second innings at 359 for three in just 52 overs, batting at a brisk pace with Shaw leading the charge.
The 25-year-old out-of-favour India player hit 222 in just 156 balls, striking 29 fours and five sixes during his blazing innings.
He was batting on 41 overnight.
This was Shaw’s first Ranji hundred for Maharashtra. He reached the three-figure mark in just 72 balls, marking his 14th first-class hundred.
In his Ranji debut for Maharashtra, he had scored 75 in the second innings against Kerala after falling for a duck in the first essay.
Karnataka in command against Goa
At Shivamogga, the legendary Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun was working hard to save Goa with his valiant batting after Karnataka bowlers struck at regular intervals to put their team in a commanding position.
At stumps on the third day, Tendulkar junior was batting on 43, and Mohit Redkar was giving him company on 24 as Goa reached 171 for six, replying to former champions Karnataka’s first innings total of 371.
Tendulkar’s knock contained five fours and a six, and came off 115 balls after Karnataka reduced Goa to 115 for six.
The duo of Tendulkar and Redkar added 56 runs for the seventh wicket to give their team’s total a semblance of respectability after Abhilash Shetty and Vidwath Kaverappa combined to take five of the six wickets to fall on the day.
Resuming the day on 28 for one, Goa were off to a poor start as they lost Suyash Prabhudessai for the addition of just one run, and they kept losing wickets at regular intervals until Tendulkar and Redkar came to the team’s rescue with their resolute batting.
However, despite their brave efforts with the bat, Karnataka remained in control of the match and are ahead of Goa by exactly 200 runs.
Lalit Yadav chipped in with 36 off 96 balls for Goa, even as most of their top and middle-order batters failed to fire.
Earlier on day two, Karun Nair made his 25th first-class hundred to take Karnataka to a strong position on the rain-hit second day.
Karun, who was omitted from the India Test squad after a middling series in England recently, made 174 off 267 balls.
Brief scores:
At Chandigarh: Maharashtra: 313 all out and 359/3 declared in 52 overs (Prithvi Shaw 222) vs Chandigarh: 209 all out in 73 overs and 129/1 in 34 overs (Arjun Azad 63 batting, Manan Vohra 53 batting).
At Shivamogga: Karnataka: 371 all out in 110.1 overs (Karun Nair 174 not out, Shreyas Gopal 57; Arjun Tendulkar 3/100, Vasuki Koushik 3/35) vs Goa 171 for six in 77 overs (Arjun Tendulkar 43 batting; Abhilash 3/63)
At Rajkot: Saurashtra: 260 all out vs Madhya Pradesh: 355/9 in in 135 overs (Yash Dubey 159, Saransh Jain 103 batting; Jaidev Unadkat 4/33).
At Mullanpur: Punjab: 436 all out in 163.4 overs (Harnoor Singh 170, Prerit Dutta 74; Ankit Sharma 4/103) vs Kerala: 158/4 in 63 overs (Ankit Sharma 62).
Ahmed shines with six-for as Bengal take slight upper hand against Gujarat
Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed returned with impressive figures of 6 for 34 to help Bengal bundle out Gujarat for 167 and then post 170 for 6 in their second innings on the third and penultimate day of their Ranji Trophy Group C match in Kolkata.
Resuming at the score of 107 for 7 in reply to Bengal’s 279 all out, Gujarat were bowled out in 76.3 overs with Ahmed ruling the roost, while Mohammed Shami (3/44) scalped three wickets.
Skipper Manan Hingrajia (80 off 252 balls) top-scored for Gujarat with a patient knock but didn’t get any company from the other end.
Sudip Kumar Gharami (54) and skipper Abhimanyu Easwaran (25) shared 55 runs in 14.5 overs for the opening stand in Bengal’s second innings.
Besides Anustup Majumdar was batting on 44, while Ahmed made 20 as Bengal lead by 282 runs with a day’s play remaining.
Left-arm orthodox bowler Siddharth Desai shone with the ball for Gujarat in the second innings with figures of 4 for 48, while left-arm medium pacer Arzan Nagwaswalla (2/58) scalped two wickets.
Uttarakhand trail Railways by 23 runs
In another Group C match in Ramnagar, Uttarakhand were 310 for 5 in reply to Railways’ 333 all out on the third day.
Yuvraj Chaudhary made 92, Bhupen Lalwani scored 78 and skipper Kunal Chandela 50.
For Railways, right-arm fast bowler Kunal Yadav picked up 3 wickets giving away 64 runs.
Uttarakhand now trail Railways by 23 runs with a day’s play remaining.
Brief Scores:
At Kolkata: Bengal 279 and 170 for 6 in 48 overs (Sudip Kumar Gharami 54; Siddharth Desai 4/48) vs Gujarat 167 all out in 76.3 overs (Manan Hingrajia 80 not out; Shahbaz Ahmed 6/34).
At Ramnagar: Railways 333 (Mohammad Saif 131, Bhargav Merai 89 not out; Mayank Mishra 6/84) vs Uttarakhand 310 for 5 in 122 overs (Yuvraj Chaudhary 92, Bhupen Lalwani 78; Kunal Yadav 3/64).