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Bombay make the best of chances

Bombay grabbed their chances against a prodigal Rajasthan to reach 280 for five in their first innings, a position from where they can dictate the course of the four-day Ranji Trophy Super League match being played at the Wankhede stadium.

On a day when the Bombay batsmen struggled on a lively track offering good bounce, the Rajasthan team helped them out of their misery as the visitors apart from presenting lives to four of Bombay's top six batsmen, including Kambli and Muzumdar, gifted as many as 42 extras.

Play on the opening day on a whole, remained quite mediocre with none of the home team batsmen able to consolidate on their starts. Kambli, who looked in superb touch, and Amol Muzumdar were the main culprits. Kambli threw away his wicket with an irresponsible shot, while Muzumdar needlessly ran himself out following a sudden rush of blood in the last over of the day.

Amit Pagnis and debutante Sushant Manjrekar, the only one's who didn't benefit from the visitors' largesse, without being flamboyant looked composed in their stay at the crease.

In the morning, Rajasthan, in a surprise decision, put Bombay in to bat after winning the toss. Openers Sameer Dighe and Amit Pagnis batted doggedly to post a 101-run partnership. Dighe, dropped on 31, was the first to go, stumped off left arm spinner Dharam Pal Singh for 32. Seamers Shamsher Singh and Krishnakumar struck once each to reduce the home team to 127 for three. Pagnis and Paranjpe being the victims.

Then followed the most fruitful phase of the Bombay innings, as Kambli dominated a 102-run fourth-wicket partnership with Amol Muzumdar. The fireworks from Kambli's blade came to an end when the left-hander was caught in the deep trying to hoist D.P. Singh.

Bombay's hopes of achieving the target of 350-plus set by their coach Ashok Mankad now rest on the young shoulders of Sushant Manjrekar, who is shaping well with six authentic boundaries in his unbeaten 34.

Scoreboard
Bombay (Ist innings): S. Dighe st Jhalani b D.P. Singh 32, A. Pagnis c Jhalani b Sanjeev Sharma 47, J. Paranjpe c Jhalani b Krishnakumar 3, A. Muzumdar run out 63, V. Kambli c Bhatia b D.P. Singh 59, S. Manjrekar batting 34.

(To bat): Ramesh Powar, A. Kuruvilla, Rajesh Pawar, S Saxena and S Kannan.

Extras (b 8, lb 4, w 3, nb 27) 42. Total (for 5 wkts, in 89.4 overs) 280.

Fall of wickets: 1-101, 2-106, 3-127, 4-229, 5-280.

Bowling: Shamsher Singh 15-2-53-0 (1 w), Krishnakumar 14-2-42-1 (2 w, 12 nb), Sanjeev Sharma 18-2-63-1 (10 nb), Devender Pal Singh 19-2-38-2, Rahul Kanwat 15-1-58-0, Jai Kumar Sharma 3-1-7-0, Anshu Jain 5.4-3-7-0 (5 nb).

CALCUTTA: At the end of the first day of the Bengal-Karnataka Ranji Trophy Super League engagement, the scoreboard at Eden Gardens read 281 for five, and the hosts couldn't probably have asked for a better way to finish the day's proceedings.

After electing to bat on a sheenless track, the hosts were soon in trouble losing four wickets in the first session itself. Thereafter, the experienced Syed Saba Karim and Charanjit Singh registered a 115-run fifth-wicket stand that catapulted Bengal to a position of strength.

At stumps, Saba Karim on 109 and skipper Utpal Chatterjee on 17 were at the crease.

Earlier in the day, Bengal were forced to bring in Shib Sagar Singh as the 12th man and field both Abdul Masood and Charanjit Singh in the final XI as the in-form Srikant Kalyani had pulled out of the tie owing to the death of a near relation.

The Karnataka pace duo of Venkatesh Prasad and Dodda Ganesh did extremely well in the morning session, extracting a fair amount of pace and bounce from an otherwise lifeless track. Devang Gandhi and Nikhil Haldipur fell to Prasad and Ganesh respectively. Rohan Gavaskar got a well-made 44 before top-edging a sharply rising delivery from Prasad to J Arunkumar in the slips, while Alokendu Lahiri completely misjudged an armer from Sunil Joshi to lose his middle stump.

And then followed a brilliant fightback as Syed Saba Karim, ably supported by Charanjit Singh, took the fight to the rival camp, notwithstanding a few dropped chances. Mixing caution with aggression, Saba Karim unleashed an array of shots on either side of the wicket. He was particularly harsh to debutant left-arm spinner Santosh Vadeyaraj, hitting him for boundaries in the point-cover, gully region. Even a widely spread out off-side field couldn't check the flow of runs in that area. Charanjit got out, after having stemmed the rot with a timely 36, but Saba Karim completed his 19th hundred in the Ranji Trophy. He also completed 5000 runs in the tournament when on 31.

Karnataka skipper Sunil Joshi agreed that the day could have ended in a slightly better way than it did had his side not missed the chances that came their way.

"Anyway, I still think we have the proceedings well under control," Joshi said.

While he was too noncommittal about his chances of bouncing back in the Indian team, Joshi said: "Let's hope whatever happens will be for the good of it," -- the obvious reference being towards Sunday's selection committee meeting to choose the one-day squad against South Africa.

Scoreboard
Bengal (1st innings): Nikhil Haldipur c Thilak Naidu b Ganesh 19, Alakendu Lahiri b Joshi 29, Debang Gandhi c Tilak Naidu b V Prasad 5, Rohan Gavaskar c J Arunkumar b V Prasad 44, Saba Karim batting 109, Charanjit Singh c J Arunkumar b S Vadeyaraj 36, Utpal Chatterjee batting 17.

Extras: (b-5, lb-7, nb-10) 22. Total: 281 for 5 in 91 overs.

Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-38, 3-109, 4-109, 5-224.

Bowling: Venkatesh Prasad: 20-5-52-2, Doda Ganesh 21-6-55-1, B Akhil 11-3-37-0, Sunl Joshi 24-3-59-1, K S.Vadeyaraj 12-2-51-1, A Vijay 3-0-15-0.

NEW DELHI: Test discard V V S Laxman and opener Nand Kishore slammed superb centuries as Hyderabad recovered from an early setback to reach 309 for eight wickets on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy Super League tie against Railways today.

Despite losing the wicket of opener Yuvraj Singh in the second over, Hyderabad rallied well to post decent total thanks to some scintillating batting by Nand Kishore (119) and V V S Laxman (109).

The duo added 186 runs for the second wicket but their departure triggered a collapse and Hyderabad slumped from 274-4 to 309-8. Shivaji Yadav was batting on three at stumps.

Electing to bat, Hyderabad started badly when paceman Kaushik Bhattacharya forced Yuvraj Singh to edge one to first slip Sanjay Bangar off his second delivery. But Nand Kishore and Laxman dis well to take the innings to safety.

Laxman's century, which came off 118 balls and 117 minutes, was studded with 15 hits to the fence. He was eventually caught at deep mid-wicket by Balaji Rao, when he mistimed a pull off off-spinner Kulamani Parida (3/106) in the 47th over.

Scoreboard:
Hyderabad (1st innings): Nand Kishore lbw Parida 119, Yuvraj Singh c Bangar b Bhattacharya 0, V V S Laxman c Balaji Rao b Parida 109, Venka Pratap c Bangar b Balaji Rao 26, Vinay Kumar c Bangar b Balaji Rao 9, Parth Satwalkar c & b Balaji Rao 18, Arjun Yadav c Wankhede b Parida 5, Shivaji Yadav batting 3, Venkatapathy Raju b Balaji Rao 0.

Extras (lb-5, b-8, nb-6, w-1) 20. Total (for 8 wkt, 90 overs) 309.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-186, 3-252 (rpt 3-252), 4-274, 5-275, 6-302, 7-302, 8-309.

Bowling: Hussain 13-3-57-0, K Bhattacharya 7-2-28-1, Balaji Rao 23-3-52-4, Devender Singh 10-0-37-0, Parida 29-3-106-3, P S Rawat 8-2-16-0.

Uttar Pradesh strike back

RAJKOT: Off spinners Niraj Odedara (4 for 56) and Hitesh Parsana (3 for 36) made good use of a turning track to help Saurashtra bundle out Uttar Pradesh for a paltry 206 on the first day of their Super League Ranji Trophy match at the Rajkot Municipal Corporation ground Saturday.

14 wickets fell on day one itself, as even Saurashtra were left struggling at 89 for four in their first innings -- with left-arm spinner Gyanendra Pandey scalping the two important wickets of opener Harendra Jani and Hitesh Goswami -- at stumps.

UP skipper Gyanendra Pandey won the toss and elected to bat.

Parvinder Singh, making his debut, turned out to be the hero of the day as he cracked a brilliant half century and emerged the top-scorer with 59 runs.

Scoreboard
Uttar Pradesh (1st innings): Manoj Mudgal c R. Vasant Kumar b Niraj Odedara 25, Jyoti Yadav c Firoz Bambhania b Narendra Rana 10, Pervender Singh c Prakash Bhatt b Firoz Bambhania 59, Rizwan Samshad c Manoj Parmar b Narendra Rana 1, Gyanendra Pandey c Sitanshu Kotak b Niraj Odedara 2, Saurabh Shukla c R Vasant Kumar b Niraj Odedara 26, Mohd. Saif b Hitesh Parsana 31, A.W. Zaidi b Hitesh Parsana 4, Musi Raza c Harendra Jani b Hitesh Parsana 17, Shalabh Srivastava b Niraj Odedara 11, Pankaj Tewari not out 8.

Extras: (b-4, lb-6, nb-2) 12. Total: 206 all out (in 250 minutes, 60.1 overs).

Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-24, 3-55, 4-58, 5-107, 6-161, 7-161, 8-165, 9-190.

Bowling: Narendra Rana 12-2-23-2, Hitesh Goswami 6-2-18-0, Niraj Odedara 15.1-0-56-4, Firoz Bambhania 9-2-36-1, Rakesh Dhruv 7-0-27-0, Hitesh Parsana 11-2-36-3.

Saurashtra (1st innings): Harendra Jani c Saurabh Shukla b Gyanendra Pandey 15, R Vasant Kumar c J Yadav b A W Zaidi 10, Hitesh Goswami c Pervender Singh b Gyanendra Pandey 12, Sitanshu Kotak c J Yadav b Musi Raza 9, Prakash Bhatt not out 13, Firoz Bambhania not out 18.

Extras: (b-8, lb-4) 12. Total: for four wickets (in 120 minutes, 32 overs): 89.

Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-32, 3-49, 4-65.

Bowling: A W Zaidi 7-1-18-1, Shalabh Srivastava 1-0-8-0, Gyanendra Pandey 15-5-24-2, Musi Raza 6-0-14-1, Pankaj Tewari 2-0-11-0, Rizwan Samshad 1-0-2-0.