Pace duo of Krishna Das and Arup Das wreaked havoc with the new ball, sharing seven wickets between them to bundle out Delhi for 149 in their first innings on the opening day of a Group A Ranji Trophy match here on Sunday. Krishna (4/38) and Arup (3/49) ran through Delhi's batting line-up with a lethal bowling spell to bowl out the visitors in 59.4 overs.
Opting to bowl after winning the toss, Krishna gave a dream start to Assam by removing opener Unmukt Chand, lBW with the very first delivery of the match.
Krishna then dismissed Dhruv Shorey and Nitish Rana in his next over before Arup induced an edje from Delhi skipper Gautam Gambhir (4), which was gleefuly accepted by Tarjinder Singh, to reduce the visitors to eight for four.
Milind Kumar (45) and wicket-keeper Puneet Bisht (23) then shared 63 runs for the fifth wicket to forge a fightback before the Assam bowlers again found their acts.
Besides Milind and Puneet, Manan Sharma (46) and Pradeep Sangwan (12) were other two Delhi batsmen to reach double digits.
In reply, Assam finished the day on 69 for three. Skipper Gokul Sharma (22 not out) was at the crease alongside KB Arun Karthik (19).
Sangwan (2/1) picked up the wickets of Rahul Hazarika (19) and Amit Verma, while Navdeep Saini dismissed Pallav Kumar Das.
Brief Scores:
Delhi: 149 all out (Manan 46*, Milind 45; Krishna Das 4/38, Arup Das 3/49) lead Assam: 69 for three (Gokul 22*, KB Arun Kar thik 19 not out; Pradeep Sangwan 2/1) by 80 runs.
Railways go out cheaply
Mumbai: led ably by Shardul Thakur, Mumbai bowlers put up a much better display than the previous game and shot out Railways for a paltry 217 at the Wankhede Stadium.
Thakur, who went wicket less against UP in the hosts' previous drawn game, did the bulk of early damage by bagging three out of the top four wickets to fall, before finishing with four wickets by sticking to a consistent outside off-stump line.
His new-ball partner Dhawal Kulkarni bagged two.
But Railways hit back strongly and reduced Mumbai to 4 for two before stumps were drawn for the day with the home team trailing the visitors by 213 runs.
Railways, who won the toss and elected to bat on a wicket that afforded some help to the bowlers, plunged into deep trouble against the new ball to be 16 for 3 before staging a partial recovery through top scorer Arindam Ghosh (67) and Vivek Singh (28).
But the loss of Vivek at 48, put the visitors on the back foot before they were revived by a stand of 85 between Ghosh (67) and Sagar (46).
Ghosh, too, could have been snapped up on 33 but was dropped off left arm spinner Vishal Dhabolkar and went on to play the sheet-anchor role till he edged the same bowler to slip fielder Suryakumar Yadav just before the second new ball became due.
Mumbai were rocked when they lost debutant Bista (2) to a catch at gully off Anureet Singh. Night watchman Kulkarni was then castled by leggie Karn Sharma.
Brief scores: Railways: 217 all out (Aridam 67, Sagar 46; Thakur 4/38) lead Mumbai 4 for 2 by 213 runs.