JOIN USOpeners Nitin Saini (49) and Rahul Dewan (34) were going steady at the crease at draw of stumps at the Mohan Meakins Cricket stadium here.
Earlier, skipper Mohammad Kaif’s decision to bat first backfired as besides Piyush Chawla (49), none of the UP batsmen could provide enough resistance to the Haryana bowlers.
Openers Tanmay Srivastava (22) and Shivakant Shukla (13) added 27 before the former was sent packing by Joginder Sharma in the ninth over.
Eklavya Dwivedi failed to open his account and was cleaned up by Budhwar, while Shukla was caught plumb in front by Dhruv. Dhruv then consumed Parvinder Singh (0) and Ashish Yadav (0) off successive deliveries as UP stared down the barrel at 54 for five in 18.4 overs.
Kanwar sparkles
Sarul Kanwar’s scored his first class century to guide Punjab to 277 for three against Orissa in another Group B match at Bhubaneswar.
Opening the innings, Kanwar smashed 104 off just 116 deliveries as Punjab ended the first day at a comfortable position after electing to bat.
Kanwar and Ravi Inder Singh (34) gave a solid start to Punjab innings by stitching 126 runs together for the opening wicket before the duo fell in quick succession.
Ravi was the first to depart, bowled by Basanth Mohanty, and 16 runs later Orissa tasted another success when they got dangerman Kanwar, caught by Biplab Samantray off Dhiraj Singh’s bowling.
Brief scores:
Group A: In Delhi: Delhi: 332/5 in 90 overs (Unmukt Chand 59, Aditya Jain 58, Puneet Bisht 36, Mithun Manhas 100 n.o., Mayank Tehlan 61 n.o.; Dhiraj Goswami 3-56) vs Assam.
In Valsad: Mumbai: 282/2 in 90 overs (Sahil Kukreja 81, Onkar Gurav 89, Ajinkya Rahane 54 n.o., Wasim Jaffer 46 n.o.) vs Gujarat.
In Rajkot: Railways: 233/4 in 90 overs (Faiz Fazal 107, Sanjay Bangar 79 n.o.; Jaidev Unadkat 2-39, Kamlesh Makvana 2-67) vs Saurashtra.
In Chennai: Tamil Nadu vs Bengal, first day’s play abandoned.
Group B: Uttar Pradesh: 167 all out in 49.5 overs (Piyush Chawla 49; Dhruv Singh 3-25, Sachin Rana 4-51) vs Haryana: 84/0 in 32 overs (Nitin Saini 49 n.o., Rahul Dewan 34 n.o.).
In Bhubaneswar: Punjab: 277/3 in 90 overs (Sarul Kanwar 104, Ravi Inder Singh 34, Uday Kaul 55 n.o., Mandeep Singh 43, Pankaj Dharmani 35 n.o.; Basanth Mohanty 2-50) vs Orissa.