JOIN USAwana helps Delhi regain lost ground
Speedster Parvinder Awana’s late strikes helped Delhi restrict Haryana to 219 for six at stumps on the first day of their Ranji Trophy Group B match at the Bansi Lal Stadium in Lahli on Saturday.
Awana removed Sachin Rana and rival captain Amit Mishra in quick succession with the second new ball as the hosts frittered away a good start provided by openers Rahul Dewan (71) and Nitin Saini (45).
The duo added 69 runs for the opening stand but barring Rahul Dalal (42 batting), the others didn’t make any significant contribution.
Awana finished the day on three for 39 from 17 overs.
The pitch was dry in nature which forced Delhi management to include off-spinner Manoj Chauhan who gave away 89 runs in 27 overs. Although the young off-spinner was successful in beating the batsman on a few occasions, he failed to consistently give the ball air or invite the batsmen to drive.
While the dogged Dewan batted for more than four hours for his 170-ball-71 which had six boundaries, Haryana batsmen never managed to force the pace and as a result don’t have too many on the board.
Saini and Dewan gave a solid start before the breakthrough came in the 23rd over. Saini drove an Awana delivery uppishly towards mid-off where Rajat Bhatia took the catch.
Dewan and Sunny Singh (28) then added another 50 runs before Sunny was cleaned up by Sumit Narwal as the burly Bhiwani boy was bowled through the gate.
Resilient
The resilient Dewan was finally out off the last delivery of the 59th over when left-arm
spinner Vikas Mishra bowled him as the opener dragged the ball onto his stumps.
Veteran all-rounder Bhatia bowled off-breaks for five overs rather than his normal military medium stuff.
Gauging that there is some turn on offer, Bhatia bowled proper off-breaks and invited Abhimanyu Khod (15) to drive one and the resultant nick was gobbled up by Puneet Bisht.
Brief scores: Haryana: 219/6 in 90 overs (Rahul Dewan 71, Nitin Saini 45, Rahul Dalal 42 batting, Sunny Singh 28; Parwinder Awana 3-39) vs Delhi.
Ranji round-up
Group A: At Mohali: Rajasthan: 222 all out in 70.3 overs (Puneet Yadav 57, Deepak Chahar 35, Dishant Yagnik 34, Ashok Menaria 32; Siddarth Kaul 4-63, Sandeep Sharma 3-72, Baltej Singh 2-45) vs Punjab: 20/1 in 17 overs.
At Mumbai: Mumbai: 262/7 in 90 overs (Wassim Jaffer 80, Abhishek Nayar 62, Aditya Tare 38, Anikeet Chavan 35; Laxmi Ratan Shukla 4-35, Iresh Saxena 2-101) vs Bengal.
At Rajkot: Saurashtra: 227/4 in 90 overs (Ravindra Jadeja 111 batting, Shitanshu Kotak 53 batting, Bhushan Chauhan 33; Sanjay Bangar 2-46, Krishnakant Upadhayay 2-53) vs Railways.
At Valsad: Gujarat: 254/2 in 90 overs (Smit Patel 114, Samit Gohel 85, Bhargav Merai 45 batting) vs Hyderabad.
Group B: At Sambalpur: Maharashtra: 264/7 in 90 overs (Aniket Bawne 51, Chirag Khurana 48, Harshad Khadiwale 43, Kedar Jadhav 33, Virag Awate 25; Bsant Mohanty 2-35) vs Odisha.
At Kanpur: Baroda: 254 all out in 83.3 overs (Ambati Rayudu 85, Kedar Devdhar 65, Ketan Panchal 31, Rakesh Solanki 25; Aniket Rajput 4-62, Piyush Chawla 3-78, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2-33) vs Uttar Pradesh: 18/0 in 6 overs.
At Nagpur: Tamil Nadu: 235/3 in 90 overs (S Badrinath 101 batting, Dinesh Kaarthick 49, KB Arun Karthik 26; Shrikant Wagh 2-57) vs Vidarbha.
Group C: At Visakhapatnam: Andhra: 240/5 in 87 overs (Amol Muzumdar 56 batting, Syed Shahabuddin 49, Prasanth Kumar 48, A G Pradeep 30; Saurabh Bandekar 3-62) vs Goa.
At Guwahati: Jammu & Kashmir: 240/7 in 90 overs (Parvez Rassol 67, Hardeep Singh 39,
Bandeep Singh 36, Obaid Haroon 35 batting; Arup Das 4-58) vs Assam.
At Nadaun: Tripura: 325/4 in 88 overs (Subhrajit Roy 111, Abbas Ali 83, Ajay Ratra 55 batting, Abhijit Dey 26 batting; Rishi Dhawan 2-83) vs Himachal Pradesh.