Nayar too slams ton as Mumbai remain in charge

Mumbai piled the pressure on Railways as they amassed a massive first innings total of 570 all out on the second day of a Group ‘A’ Ranji Trophy tie at the Wankhede Stadium here on Saturday.

After Sachin Tendulkar and Ajinkya Rahane had hogged the limelight on the first day with their spectacular centuries, Abhishek Nayar impressed on the second with an unbeaten 107 off 164 balls.

Railways found themselves in a spot of bother losing their openers, Shivakant Shukla (18) and Amit Paunikar (9) with just 31 on the board. Captain Sanjay Bangar (36 batting) and Nitin Bhille (21 batting) restored some parity with an unbeaten 55-run stand to take Railways to 86 for two at the end of the day’s play. Mumbai resumed the proceedings on an overnight score of 344 for four. Rahane could only  add 24 runs before he was trapped in front of the stumps by Krishnakant Upadhyay. Nayar then batted brilliantly with the tail as skipper Ajit Agarkar scored 20 off 35 balls.

Spinner Ramesh Powar made a gritty 41 and played a key role in taking Mumbai to their mammoth total.

He stitched a 63-run partnership with Nayar for the eighth wicket, ensuring Mumbai crossed the 500-mark.

Anureet Singh and Shukla were impressive with ball taking three wickets apiece while veteran spinner Murali Kartik accounted for two. Agarkar was on target for Mumbai with the ball taking both the wickets to fall in the Railways innings.

Brief scores: Group A: At Kolkata: Bengal (overnight: 187/4 in 59 overs): 258 all out in 78.4 overs (Subhomoy Das 95, Manoj Tiwary 42, Wriddhiman Saha 59; Pankaj Singh 5-50, Rituraj Singh 3-116) vs Rajasthan: 63/4 in 31 overs (Sourav Sarkar 2-26, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 2-7).

At Indore: Gujarat (overnight: 327/5 in 90 overs): 355 all out in 101 overs (Niraj Patel 31, Parthiv Patel 162, Venugopal Rao 45, Manprit Juneja 59; Anand Rajan 7-77) vs Madhya Pradesh: 212/8 in 77 overs (Naman Ojha 71, Udit Birla 49; Amit Singh 3-44, Mehul Patel 2-30, Rakesh Dhurv 2-53).

At Mumbai: Mumbai (overnight: 344/4 in 90 overs): 570 all out in 151 overs (Aditya Tare 47, Ajinkya Rahane 129, Sachin Tendulkar 137, Abhishek Nayar 107 n.o., Ramesh Powar 41; Anureet Singh 3-81, Murali Kartik 2-151, Shivakant Shukla 3-53) vs Railways: 86/2 in 28 overs (Sanjay Bangar 36 batting; Ajit Agarkar 2-20).

At Mohali: Hyderabad (overnight: 244/7 in 90 overs): 258 all out in 96. 3 overs (Akshath Reddy 63, Ibraham Khaleel 41, Dwaraka Ravi Teja 36, Arjun Yadav 34; Manpreet Gony 4-60, Sandeep Sharma 3-45) vs Punjab: 243/0 in 81 overs (Jiwanjot Singh 116 batting, Karan Goel 106 batting).

Group B: At Rohtak: Haryana 55 all out and 103/3 in 44 overs (Nitin Saini 46, Rahul Dewan 31; Umesh Yadav 2-44) vs Vidrabha (overnight 78/2 in 37 overs): 205 all out in 79 overs (Shrikant Wagh 44, Faiz Fazal 33, Shiv Sundar Das 25; Mohit Sharma 3-45, Chanderpal Saini 3-47, Kuldeep Hooda 2-42).

At Cuttack: Tamil Nadu: 66/2 in 31 overs vs Odisha (second day’s play washed out).
Group C: At Anantapur: Services (overnight 73/5 in 28 overs): 256/8 in 108 overs (Rajat Paliwal 72, Muzaffaruddin Khalid 41 batting, Sarabjit Singh 34, Shadab Nazar 30 batting) vs Andhra.

At Guwahati: Assam (overnight 220/5 in 90 overs): 450 all out in 152.5 overs (Dheeraj Jadhav 243, Jamaluddin Syed Mohammad 89, Gokul Sharma 41; Timir Chandra 5-50, Tushar Saha 3-78, Rajib Saha 2-45) vs Tripura: 72/3 in 27 overs (Subhrajit Roy 27; Abu Nechim 2-38).

At Nadaun: Kerala (overnight 196/8 in 73.4 overs): 229 all out in 82 overs (Sanju Samson 127, Abhishek Hegde 26; Vikramjeet Malik 3-47, Rishi Dhawan 3-77, Gurvinder Singh 2-47) vs Himachal Pradesh: 250/4 in 78 overs (Paras Dogra 121, Hemanth Kumar 45; Ummer Anthaf 2-38).

At Jammu: Jammu & Kashmir: 195 all out in 56. 5 overs vs Jharkhand (overnight 81/1 in 29 overs): 354/8 in 116 overs (Shiv Gautam 80, Rameez Nemat 75, Saurabh Tiwary 72, Manish Vardhan 31, Sunny Gupta 29; Parves Rassol 3-96, Ram Dayal 2-64).