Samson, 17, revives Kerala with maiden century

India Under-19 batsman Sanju Samson made his maiden first-class hundred in only his third game to lift Kerala from the depths of 46 for 4 towards a respectable score in Nadaun, Himachal Pradesh.

The home side's attack, led by the opening pair of Rishi Dhawan and Vikramjeet Malik, continued to pick up wickets through a curtailed day's play, and 17-year old Samson continued to defy them at one end. Samson hit 13 boundaries in his 173-ball knock and reached an even 100 by stumps in the company of No. 10 Prasanth Parameswaran, with whom he added an unbeaten 51. Samson had little support from the rest of the Kerala batsmen, with opener Abhishek Hegde's 26 being the next highest score.

The opening day of the Ranji Trophy in Guwahati belonged to Tripura medium-pacer Timir Chanda, who took 5 for 50, and Assam opener Dheeraj Jadhav, who was unbeaten on 127. Neither of them had much support from their team-mates though. No other Tripura bowler - five others were used - took a wicket, and apart from Gokul Sharma, no Assam batsman went past 20.

Assam lost two wickets for the addition of one run to slip to 34 for 2 after choosing to bat. Jadhav dominated a 55-run stand with Tarjinder Singh for the third wicket and 107 for the next with Gokul. The last wicket to fall on the day was that of Hokaito Zhimomi, the first first-class cricketer to come from Nagaland. Given that Chanda was the only bowler taking wickets, he bowled the most overs - 23. Offspinner Udit Patel bowled 13 wicketless overs for 19 runs.

An 81-run opening stand between Jharkhand's openers Manish Vardhan and Rameez Nemat gave the team a stronghold at the end of the first day after the bowlers had restricted Jammu and Kashmir to 195 in Jammu. Vardhan, however, fell in the last over of the day bowled by Parvez Rassol after scoring 31.

J&K had chosen to bat on their home ground but were struck early blows as they lost their opener Ian Dev Singh and Arshad Bhatt in quick succession to medium-pacer Shankar Rao. The other opener, Adil Rishi, then shared a quick half-century partnership with Rassol that revived J&K. However, their middle order faltered against the spin duo of Sunny Gupta and Shahbaz Nadeem. That J&K reached 195 was due to an unbeaten 49 by Hardeep Singh and his partnerships with Nos. 10 and 11.

Andhra gained the upper hand against Services after choosing to field on a wet day in Anantapur. Only 28 overs were possible but the Andhra bowlers got rid of the top half of the Services batting with only 73 runs on the board. Left-arm medium-pacer T Atchuta Rao struck twice in his first over to give Andhra an excellent start before right-arm medium-pacer Duvvarapu Shivkumar added two more to make it Andhra's day.