New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Railways’ Nitin Bille, Saurashtra’s Chirag Pathak, Punjab’s Ravi Inder Singh and Karan Goel struck hundreds on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Division matches Tuesday.
Delhi fought back against Madhya Pradesh after being bowled out for 158.
Punjab made a promising start against 2010 champions Rajasthan in a fifth round match, scoring 283 for 3 by stumps at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Inder Singh’s 133 and Goel’s unbeaten 116 laid a strong foundation for a big score in the first innings.
Pathak’s fluent 116 helped Saurashtra end the day at 244 for 2 against Mumbai. Pathak was involved in a 218-run stand with Bhushan Chauhan, who remained not out on 87.
Once again all eyes were on Zaheer Khan at the Khandheri Cricket Stadium in Rajkot.
India’s premier fast bowler, who is aiming to be match fit for Australia tour, bowled 13 overs and picked up a wicket for Mumbai.
Bille of Railways scored 123 against Uttar Pradesh at the Mohan Meakins Stadium in Ghaziabad. The away team ended day one at 282 for 5 with Shivakant Shukla contributing 98 to the total.
Delhi, who thrashed Baroda by 10 wickets at home last week, fought back against Madhya Pradesh after an ordinary batting effort at Emerald High School Ground in Indore. Ashish Nehra and Pradeep Sangwan shared two wickets each as Delhi reduced the hosts to 86 for six at stumps.
Madhya Pradesh started their reply with skipper Naman Ojha (39) and Zafar Ali (60) forging a 60-run opening wicket stand. The pendulum swung in favour of Delhi after Ali’s dismissal as the next five batsman perished in no time. Nehra got Harpreet Singh and Devendra Bundela in the 25th over which turned out to be the last over of the day.
Brief scores:
Elite Division
Group A:
At Bhubaneswar: Karnataka 238/6 in 90 overs (Muralidharen Gautam batting 63, Amit Verma 39; Alok Mangaraj 3/66, Biplab Samantray 2/22) vs. Orissa
At Rajkot: Saurashtra 244/2 in 88 overs (Chirag Pathak 116, Bhushan Chauhan batting 87; Zaheer Khan 1/55) vs. Mumbai
At Jaipur: Punjab 283/3 in 90 overs (Ravi Inder Singh 133, Karan Goel batting 116; Pankaj Singh 1/52) vs. Rajasthan
At Ghaziabad: Railways 282/5 in 90 overs (Nitin Bille 123, Shivakant Shukla 98; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/50, Piyush Chawla 2/81) vs. Uttar Pradesh
Group B:
At Vadodara: Baroda 192/7 in 90 overs (Rakesh Solanki 69, Aditya Waghmode 29; Ishwar Chaudhary 2/63, MB Patel 2/35, Faisal Dudhat 2/44) vs. Gujarat
At Kolkata: Tamil Nadu 261/5 in 84 overs (Abhinav Mukund 83, Kuthethurshri Vasudevadas batting 69; Ashok Dinda 2/58) vs. Bengal
At Indore: Delhi 158 all out in 59 overs ( Unmukt Chand 37, Puneet Bisht 35; TP Sudhindra 4/46, Amit Sharma 3/55) vs Madhya Pradesh 86/6 in 24.5 overs (Naman Ojha 39, Zafar Ali 20; Ashish Nehra 2/30, Pradeep Sangwan 2/27)
Plate Division
Group A:
At Cuddapah: Vidarbha 200/5 in 90 overs (Hemang Badani 73, Ranjit Paradkar batting 66; Syed Sahabuddin 1/16) vs. Andhra
At Kannur: Himachal Pradesh 243/2 in 90 overs (Abhinav Bali 120, Paras Dogra 59; Mohammad Sanuth 1/47) vs. Kerala
At Agartala: Tripura 242 all out in 87.3 overs (Subhrajit Roy 85, Tushar Saha 30; Suraj Yadav 3/97, Muzzaffaruddin Khalid 3/45, Nishan Singh 2/56) vs. Services
Group B:
At Guwahati: Assam 182/3 in 91 overs (Dheeraj Jadhav batting 62, Pallavkumar Das 50; Akshya Darekar 2/37) vs. Maharashtra
At Hyderabad: Hyderabad 234/4 in 90 overs (Bavanaka Sandeep batting 94, Akshath Reddy 78; Ram Dayal 1/20) vs. Jammu and Kashmir
At Jamshepur: Jharkhand 218 all out in 87 overs (Manish Vardhan 84, Deepak Chougule batting 45; Saurabh Bandekar 3/37, Robin D’Souza 3/36, Amit Yadav 2/38, Sher Yadav 2/29) vs. Goa 2/1 in 1 over (Shankar Rao 1/1)
