Nayar's six-wicket haul gives Mumbai advantage
A round-up of the first day's play of the quarter-final matches of the Ranji Trophy Super League 2008-09
Cricinfo staff
26-Dec-2008
Mumbai 19 for 0 trail Himachal Pradesh 250 (Sarandeep Singh 75, Mannu 61, Nayar 6-45) by 231 runs
Scorecard
Scorecard
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Abhishek Nayar starred with a six-wicket haul to bowl out Himachal Pradesh (HP) for a below-par 250 after the opening day's play in Ahmedabad. HP were strangled by Nayar's triple-strike late in the first session before a rearguard from Ajay Mannu and Sarandeep Singh extricated them from a precarious 74 for 5. However, on a slow, unresponsive track, Mumbai hold all the aces and can be expected to take a handy first-innings lead.
After being sent in, HP's openers provided a solid start, reaching 50 without loss before Nayar struck; his wicket-to-wicket line paid off as he claimed two lbw victims. Dhawal Kulkarni too got into the act with a double-strike to further jolt HP before Sarandeep and Mannu started the repair job. The pair's 101-run partnership lent some respectability to the total but another slide started when off-spinner Ramesh Powar got rid of Mannu. Nayar returned to get rid of Sarandeep and ran through the tail to finish with career-best figures.
Suresh Raina hit 93 to push Uttar Pradesh to 242 for 6 after being put into bat by Gujarat in Vadodara. However, Gujarat will be happy with the end-of-the-day situation as UP were sitting pretty at 108 for 1 at one stage.
After the early loss of the in-form Tanmay Srivastava, Raina combined with the opener Shivakant Shukla to take UP to a healthy position. However, the run-outs of Shukla and Mohammad Kaif hampered their progress. Raina, who has a solitary fifty this season, hit 12 fours and four sixes in a 172-ball stay, but fell to Ashraf Makda to leave UP in more trouble at 160 for 4. Parvinder Singh then scored a patient unbeaten fifty to ensure Gujarat didn't run away with the game.
Medium-pacer Siddharth Trivedi and off-spinner Mukund Parmar didn't do much damage but Makda chipped in with two wickets to keep Gujarat in the hunt.
Karnataka 265 for 8 (Uthappa 139, R Jadeja 5-71) v Saurashtra
Scorecard
Scorecard
Ravindra Jadeja continued his magnificent form to restrict Karnataka and help Saurashtra gain the upper hand on the opening day of their quarter-final clash. In a marathon 30-over spell of accurate and incisive left-arm spin Jadeja bagged his fourth five-for of the season which included three wickets in seven balls to overshadow Robin Uthappa's brilliant century. At stumps R Vinay Kumar remained unbeaten on 22 after partnering Sunil Joshi in a 40-run eighth-wicket stand that frustrated Saurashtra. Read full report here.
Manoj Tiwary hit an attractive century to propel Bengal to 292 for 5 on a flat track at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. Tiwary stitched together a 127-run partnership with Dibyendu Chakrabarty to lift Bengal from 131 for 4 towards a position of relative strength. However, on a batting beauty Bengal need at least 400 to put Tamil Nadu under pressure. Read full report here.
