Mumbai and Andhra get the winning feeling

A summary of the third day in the latest round of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group

28-Dec-2005

Mumbai 430 and 200 for 1 (Kukreja 80*, Samant 67) beat Tamil Nadu 275 and 351
Scorecard

A rollicking 130-run opening stand between Sahil Kukreja and Vinayak Samant set the tone for an emphatic Mumbai win before Wasim Jaffer's blistering 44 to took them home in a superb chase. Having bowled out Tamil Nadu for 351, thanks mainly to Ramesh Powar's five-wicket haul, Mumbai hunted down 196 in just 32.4 overs to post their first win of the season. They were on course to bagging a bonus point as well, when the openers laid a fantastic platform but Samant fell with 66 remaining. The win put Mumbai on top of Group A while Tamil Nadu remain with five points with two rounds to play.

Baroda 262 and 73 for 4 trail Punjab 130 and 236 (Zaheer 6-72) by 32 runs
Scorecard

Needing just 32 to win on the final day, Baroda, guided by Yusuf Pathan, climbed to the top of the table with a four-wicket win over Punjab in the Elite B game at Vadodara. Yusuf, the elder brother of the Indian allrounder Irfan Pathan, took Baroda home with an unbeaten 19 after the early loss of the two overnight batsmen. The defeat meant that Punjab slid to the third position in the Group B table, with nine points from five games.

Bengal 405 for 7 dec drew with Gujarat 371 for 9 (Niraj 60)
Scorecard

Mukund Parmar stood between Bengal and a first-innings lead as he played a fighting knock of 46, guiding the tail to earn a hard-fought draw at Surat. Parmar's effort came after half-centuries from Niraj Patel and Bhavik Thaker took Gujarat to 261 for 5. Shib Shankar Paul struck twice in succession to reduce them to 286 for 7 before Parmar guided the last two batsmen through 18 overs to secure a draw. Parmar's resistance meant that both teams left the game with zero points.

Andhra 409 (Sahabuddin 61,Gnaneswara Rao 73) beat Haryana 206 and 158 (Sahabuddin 5-42, Kalyankrishna 5-63) by an innings and 45 runs
Scorecard

Syeb Sahabuddin and D Kalyankrishna blew away Haryana for a paltry 158 in their second innings to help Andhra register an emphatic innings victory in the Elite group match at Anantapur. Venugopal Rao, the Andhra captain, deployed Sahabuddin and Kalyankrisha for 39 out of the 52 overs and the duo responded superbly, bowling Andhra to their first win of the season and gaining a bonus point to boot. Sahabuddin had earlier contributed with the bat as well, adding 106 runs for the sixth wicket with Gnaneswara Rao to lift Andhra to a healthy 409.

The following matches finished earlier

Karnataka 260 ((Uthappa 96) beat Maharashtra 108 (Vinay Kumar 5-22) and 144 (Satbhai 57, Ragavendra 4-46, Patel 4-38) by an innings and 8 runs
Scorecard

Powered by four-wicket hauls from Chandra Shekar Ragavendra and Udit Patel, Karnataka registered an overwhelming victory as Maharashtra, overnight on 78 for 0, were shot out for 144 in their second innings on the third day at Bangalore. Ragavendra, the left-arm spinner, and Patel, the offspinner, tormented the batsmen on the third-day track after Vinay Kumar had removed Satyajjit Satbhai, overnight on 53, early in the day.

Hyderabad 415 (Anirudh 95, Vinay Kumar 90, Manohar 54) beat Services 196 and 81 (Kaushik Reddy 6-31) by an innings and 138 runs
Scorecard

Kaushik Reddy ripped apart Services with a six-wicket haul, 11 in the game, as Hyderabad won by an innings and 138 runs on the third day at Hyderabad. Earlier, Vinay Kumar extended his overnight 49 to 90 before NP Singh (41 not out) guided the tail to steer Hyderabad to a mammoth 415.

Delhi 131 (Kartik 8-40) and 127 for 3 (Gambhir 43) beat Railways 77 and 180 (Yadav 90, Sharma 5-39) by 7 wickets
Scorecard

Delhi clinched a low-scoring match by seven wickets to register their first win of the Ranji Trophy season. In a game which lasted just two days, they recovered from a poor first-innings effort to bowl Railways out for just 180 in their second dig, and then knocked off the 127 required for victory losing just three wickets. Despite losing Virender Sehwag for a duck in their run-chase, Delhi won comfortably thanks to a 76-run stand for the second wicket between Gautam Gambhir, the Indian opener, and Shikhar Dhawan. Both thwarted the Railways bowlers, including Murali Kartik, who had taken 8 for 40 to destroy Delhi's first innings; in the second, he could only manage 1 for 53 from 15 overs. Railways' star in their second innings was Jai P Yadav, who struck a fine 90, the only half-century of the match, but the rest of the batsmen had no answers to Abhishek Sharma, who picked 5 for 39 with his legspinners to restrict Railways to a manageable total.