Report

Another 16-wicket day in Jaipur; Goswami, Dinda rattle Assam

A round-up of the Ranji Trophy 2015-16 Group A matches played on December 2, 2015

Assam 1 for 4 (Dinda 4-0) trail Bengal 444 for 6 dec ( Goswami 112, Shaw 99, Krishna 2-94) by 443 runs
Scorecard
Bengal took big strides towards securing their berth in the knockouts as Ashok Dinda struck four times in two overs after Bengal whipped up a total of 444.
Dinda had Pallav Kumar Das caught behind off his first ball before having the other opener - Rahul Hazarika - lbw for 1. He followed it with another double-wicket maiden to dash Assam's hopes of a fightback.
Earlier, Shreevats Goswami and Pankaj Shaw built on the platform laid by Sayan Mondal and Sudip Chatterjee. While Goswami went on to strike his maiden first-class century in his 28th match, Shaw was pinned lbw for 99 by left-arm spinner Syed Mohammad. Aamir Gani's 43-ball 33 pushed the total further before Manoj Tiwary declared the innings at 444 for 6 in 158 overs.
Haryana 53 for 0 trail Vidarbha 504 for 7 dec (Fazal 126, Jangid 110, Sarvate 103, Harshal 2-70) by 451 runs
Scorecard
Resuming on an overnight 284 for 6, Vidarbha surged to 504 thanks to centuries from Ravi Jangid and Aditya Sarwate. The pair added 212 runs for the seventh wicket before Jangid was run out for 110 by Jayant Yadav. Sarwate stayed unbeaten on 103 as S Badrinath called the batsmen in at 504 for 7 in 155 overs. Haryana then began steadily, openers Nitin Saini and Chaitanya Bishnoi taking their side to 53 by stumps on the second day.
Rajasthan 78 for 2 (Puneet 56) and 51 ( Alok 6-33, Mohanty 4-17) need 152 runs to beat Odisha 151 and 129 (Alok 31, Ranjit 30, Choudhary 4-31, Pankaj 4-43)
Scorecard
Wickets continued to tumble in Jaipur as Rajasthan were set a target of 230. Basant Mohanty and Alok Chandra Sahoo, who began by routing Rajasthan for 51, reduced the hosts to 7 for 2 in the fourth innings. However, Puneet Yadav launched a counterattack, making 56 out of Rajasthan's 78.
Mohanty and Alok carried on from where they had left off on the opening day as Rajasthan managed only 23 runs to their overnight score before they were rolled over in 27.2 overs. The innings contained four ducks and only three double-digit scores.
Pankaj Singh and Aniket Choudhary then took over, sharing eight wickets between them to shoot Odisha out for 129. Ranjit Singh and Alok offered a semblance of resistance with 30s but a first-innings lead of 100 meant that Odisha were ahead on another 16-wicket day.
Maharashtra 212 and 70 for 4 (Tripathi 31*, Aravind 2-17, Vinay Kumar 2-24) lead Karnataka 180 (Sanklecha 4-58, Dhumal 3-46, Mundhe 3-54) by 102 runs
Scorecard
Karnataka, who ended the first day in Pune at 50 for 1, collapsed to 180, right-arm pacer Anupam Sanklecha doing the bulk of the damage with figures of 4 for 58. He was backed up by Nikit Dhumal and Shrikant Mundhe who shared six wickets between them.
Mayank Agarwal was the first to go on the second day when he was undone by Sanklecha. Robin Uthappa and Karun Nair both had starts but failed to build on it. Shreyas Gopal then managed 21 but Maharashtra took a first innings lead of 32.
Karnataka, however, hit back through Vinay Kumar and S Aravind to reduce Maharashtra to 39 for 4 in 17.5 overs. Just as Karnataka looked to make further inroads, Rahul Tripathi and Kedar Jhadav steadied the innings with an unbroken 31-run partnership.