Veteran all-rounder Sumit Narwal blasted his way to an unbeaten 106 as Delhi seized control of their opening Ranji Trophy group league encounter against Rajasthan displaying remarkable recovery from hopeless position on the first day.
Having conceded a 102-run first innings lead against the hosts, it was a brilliant collective effort by the Delhi batsmen as they declared at 437 for nine in their second innings taking a handy overall lead of 335 runs.
In reply, Rajasthan were 20 for one at the end of the third day’s play with left-arm fast howler Pawan Suyal removing opener Pranay Sharma (0).
The day however belonged to left-handed Narwal, who came in at the fall of Vaibhav Rawal’s (30) wicket. Delhi were 291 for seven at that time with lead of ariound 189 and not completely out of the woods. Skipper Gautam Gambhir (93) was trapped leg before by debutant pacer Nathu Singh (7/87).
Narwal, who only believes in attacking the bowling played 94 balls for his 106 that had 10 fours and five huge sixes. This was his second first-class hundred as his maiden one was scored for Haryana, years ago.
He shared couple of important stands — 65 for eighth wicket with Manan Sharma (22) and 53 for the ninth wicket with Parvinder Awana (11). These two stands effectively helped Delhi give themseleves a shot at getting full points from the match where they were bundled out for 138 on the first day.
For Rajasthan, Nathu bowled well working up a decent pace but it wasn’t good enough to trouble the batsmen playing.
Once Gambhir and Pradeep Sangwan (18) were out in the morning session, Delhi were 205 for three, but Milind Kumar (44) and Rawal added 75 runs for the fourth wicket before the visitors lost four wickets for 13 runs. Milind, Rawal, Yogesh Nagar (0), Mohit Ahlawat (4) were dismissed in quick succession before Narwal took the attack back to the opposition camp.
Vidarbha take control after Podder’s ton
Govinda Podder struck 148 before Vidarbha off-spinner Akshay Wakhare picked up four wickets to bowl out Odisha for 274 in their Ranji Trophy cricket match.
In reply to Vidarbha’s total of 467, Odisha’s innings ended at 274, and after being forced to follow-on the hosts were 15 for no loss in their second innings.
Podder struck 20 fours and a six in his 254 balls at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Jamtha. Podder shared 80 runs for the third wicket with Anurag Sarangi (35), but none of the other batsmen could make substantial contribution.
Ravikumar Thakur ably supported Wakhare, bagging three wickets for 34 runs, as Vidarbha took control of the match on day 3 of this Group A match.
Ranji Round-up
* Haryana: 335 (Himanshu Rana 157, Virender Sehwag 92, Samad Fallah 3/78, Nikit Dhumal 3/55) vs Maharashtra: 256/3 (Swapnil Gugale 91, Ashish Hooda 2/50).
* Vidarbha: 467 (Aditya Shanware 119, Ganesh Satish 53, Umesh Yadav 128 not out; Basant Mohanty 3/65) vs Odisha: 274 (Govinda Podder 148; Akshay Wakhare 4/84) & 15/0.
* Delhi: 138 & 437/9 declared (Sumit Narwal 106, Gautam Gambhir 93, Nathu Singh 7/87) vs Rajasthan: 240 (Deepak Chahar 50, Puneet Yadav 46, Dishant Yagnik 40, Sumit Narwal 3/47, Parvinder Awana 2/24) & 20/1.
* Punjab: 604/4 declared (Gurkeerat Singh Mann 201 no, Uday kaul 112, Mandeep Singh 109, Gitansh Khera 102 no) vs Railways: 196 & 125/5 (Prashant Awasthi 44, Varun 5/51).
* Karnataka: 187 & 394/8 declared (Ravikumar Samarth 131; Syed Mohammad 4/91) vs Assam: 194 (Pallavkumar Das 55, Amit Verma 57; R Vinay Kumar 2/20, Shreyas Gopal 2/43, Karun Nair 2/11) & 30/1.
* Andhra: 244 R Bhui 103, M Kaif 90; BS Sandhu 5/53) vs Mumbai 158/5 (Siddhesh lad 63, Bandaru Ayyappa 2/47).
* Tamil Nadu: 125 & 155 (Baba Aparajith 39; Bhargav Bhatt 6/58) beat Baroda: 159 (Yusuf Pathan 41; Rahil Shah 4/38, D T Chandrasekar 4/50) & 114 by 7 runs.
* Uttar Pradesh: 686/7 declared (Shaulat 128, Saif 198, Khan 155) vs Madhya Pradesh 234/3 (Naman Ojha 88, Shrivastava 99 batting).
* J&K: 330 vs Kerala: 485/8 (Sachin Baby 151, Samson 101).
* Hyderabad: 325 vs Goa: 349/5 (Kamat 81, Misal 67).
* Saurashtra: 307 (Ravindra Jadeja 91, Sheldon Jackson 97, Abhijit Dey 4/118, Tushar Saha 4/72) beat Tripura: 103 (Arindam Das 24, Ravindra Jadeja 6/27) & 86 by an innings and 118 runs.
* Jharkhand: 45 and 192 (Saurabh Tiwary 56, Virat Singh 51; Pathania 7/64) vs Services: 161 (Rajat Paliwal 26, Poonam Poonia 24; Rahul Shukla 3/61) and 78/1.