Tailenders help Haryana to recover

Rohtak: Useful contributions by the tailenders helped Haryana to stage a recovery against Himachal Pradesh on the opening day of their fourth match of the North Zone Ranji Trophy league at the Vishwakarma stadium here today.

Haryana's last three wickets added exactly 100 runs to enable the team to reach a respectable total of 222 in their first innings.

Haryana won the toss and elected to bat. The opening pair of Jitender Singh and Sanjay Balwan put on 47 runs for the first wicket before Balwan was caught behind off medium pacer Shakti Singh. Balwan made 14 runs in 42 balls. Five overs later it was Jitender's turn to leave the ground. He was adjudged leg before wicket to Rahul Panta for 26 runs. He hit four boundaries.

Skipper Parender Sharma and Sanjay Dalal contributed 24 and 23 runs respectively before being dismissed by Shakti Singh. Amarjeet Kaypee scored 35 to emerge as the highest scorer before he was caught behind off Rahul Panta. At one stage Haryana was in deep trouble having lost seven wickets for 122 runs. A strokeful innings of 30 runs in 34 balls by Vineet Jain and a valuable 28 by Pankaj Thakur enabled Haryana to reach their ultimate total.

Shakti Singh was the wrecker-in-chief. He dismissed six batsmen giving away 85 runs in 32 overs. He was ably supported by Rahul Panta who bagged three wickets for 54 runs. Jaswant Rai claimed the remaining wicket for 51 runs.

In the remaining 9.5 overs, Himachal Pradesh made 32 runs for two wickets. Sandeep Moudgil was bowled by Vineet Jain for three in the fifth over of the innings. Off spinner Pankaj Thakur struck with the fifth delivery of his second over to get rid of Sat Parkash, who made his debut today, for 14 when stumps were drawn for the day.