A sluggish pitch and constant rain delays made the life of batsmen miserable on the first day of the two-day Safi Darashah cricket tournament on Wednesday.

At the IAF grounds, Bangalore Zone made 203 for five in the possible 72.5 overs against Bangalore City after they match had a delayed start in the morning due to overnight showers.
S P Manjunath 51 (102b, 5x4, 1x6) led the Zone’s charge with a composed fifty.

He received staunch support from G M Gautham, who made 49 off 96 balls with two hits to the fence.
For City, Nikhil Kashyap grabbed three wickets conceding 49 runs.

Elements also did not spare the other match of the day between Combined City XI and Presidency XI. Skies opened up with a vengeance after 41.1 overs of play as Combined City ended the day on 136 for three.
The feature of their innings was an aggressive half-century by Suraj Sampath. Sampath made 60 off just 64 balls with 13 boundaries before perishing.

But his dismissal slowed down the pace of scoring as they struggled against some tight bowling.  Nitin Bille also came up with an useful contribution while scoring 32 runs.

For Presidency XI Dhananjay and Ryan Ninan scalped one wicket apiece.

R Jonathan and Cheluvaraj were batting on seven and 20 runs respectively at stumps on the first day.
Brief scores:

At IAF (T): Bangalore Zone: 203/5 in 72.5 overs (S Vinodh 28, G M Gutham 49, K C Avinash 43,  S P Manjunath 51; Nikhil Kashyap 3-49) vs Bangalore City.
Combined City XI:  136/3 in 41.1 overs (Suraj Sampath 60, Nitin Bille 32, Cheluvaraj (batting) 20, R Jonathan (batting) 7; S Dhananjay 1-29, Ryan Ninan 1-26) vs Presidency XI.