Report

Bundela's twin hundreds end Punjab's run

A round-up of the seventh round of Ranji Trophy's Group A matches on December 18, 2012

Madhya Pradesh 323 ( Bundela 108, Saxena 84, Sandeep 5-92) and 193 for 2 (Bundela 100*, Saxena 72*) beat Punjab 148 (Rajan 4-29) and 364 (f/o) (Yuvraj 131, Jiwanjot 103, Amitoze 52, G Yadav 4-86) by eight wickets
Scorecard
Devendra Bundela, the Madhya Pradesh captain, hit a century in each innings to bring Punjab's unbeaten run this season to an end in Gwalior. It was an unbelievable run. Four outright wins, including two by an innings, in six games, and first-innings leads in the remaining two. MP were 8 for 2 this morning in their chase of 190, before the allrounder Jalaj Saxena and Bundela took over. Saxena was unbeaten on 72 to go with his 84 in the first innings, and Bundela added an unbeaten 100 to his 108 as MP scored at a run-rate comfortably above four an over. There were seven wickets for the MP fast bowler Anand Rajan, and five each for Gaurav Yadav and Amarjeet Singh, as Punjab were dismissed for 364 in their second innings. MP now have 20 points and are second in Group A behind Punjab.
Railways 405 (Shukla 109, Madkaikar 86, Rawat 52) beat Rajasthan 135 (Anureet 5-40) and 258 (f/o) (Bist 68, Menaria 56, Chouhan 51, Karan 8-97) by an innings and 12 runs
Scorecard
Railways won their first game of the season, thrashing the defending champions Rajasthan by an innings in Bhubaneshwar. Rajasthan began the morning on 153 for 2 in their follow-on innings, still trailing Railways by 117. The legspinning allrounder Karan Sharma ran through the line-up, taking a career-best 8 for 97 as Rajasthan could not even make Railways bat again. There were fifties for Robin Bist and Ashok Menaria but no resistance from the batsmen after them. Rajasthan remained bottom of Group A with five points from six games while Railways now have 14 from six and are in fifth position.
Mumbai 606 for 5 dec (Tare 222, Rohit 166, Jaffer 79, Nayar 69*) and 169 for 5 dec (Jaffer 71, Rohit 71) drew with Saurashtra 300 (Vasavada 111*, Jaydev Shah 60, Kulkarni 4-58)
Scorecard
Mumbai took three points with a 306-run first-innings lead over Saurashtra in Rajkot. Aarpit Vasavada, who completed his maiden first-class hundred, finally ran out of partners, with Dhawal Kulkarni picking up four wickets. With Saurashtra batting for 131.5 overs, and the next round starting after three days, Mumbai chose not to enforce the follow-on. Wasim Jaffer and Rohit Sharma reeled off half-centuries in the inconsequential second innings, but Ajinkya Rahane had his second failure of the match when he was caught behind off Siddarth Trivedi for 6. Saurashtra are third in the group while Mumbai are sixth.