Himachal collapse gives Haryana the lead

Rohtak: Himachal conceded a 70 runs lead as their innings suddenly collapsed on the second day against Haryana in the North Zone Ranji Trophy league match at the Vishwakarma stadium here today.

Resuming at the overnight score of 32 for two in reply to Haryana's first innings total of 222, Himachal batsmen Nischal Gaur and skipper Rajiv Nayyar put on 76 runs for the third wicket. When the score was 108, Gaur was dismissed for 50 by medium pacer Feroz Ghyas. Before being caught behind by Ajay Ratra, Gaur stayed at the crease for 205 minutes. He faced 159 balls and hit eight boundaries. His departure signalled a sudden collapse in the session between lunch and tea. Seven Himachal wickets fell for the addition of only 44 runs and the entire team was bundled out for 152.

Vineet Jain returned with the impressive figures of 13.4-6-30-4. Feroz Ghyas and Pankaj Thakur took three wickets each giving away 49 and 35 runs respectively.

Haryana started their second innings immediately after tea. They tested a new pair of openers. Pradeep Jain who is a specialist bowler, opened with Jitender Singh. The experiment did not work and Pradeep was bowled by Shakti Singh when he had made nine runs. Jitender and Parender played ten overs togather before the former was dismissed by Rahul Panta for 15. At 62, Amarjeet Kaypee was out after scoring 11 runs. He was leg before to Shakti Singh.

Before draw of stumps, however Parender Sharma and Rajesh Puri had added 60 runs in an unfinished partnership for the fourth wicket. Both of them scored at a fairly brisk rate. They put on 50 runs in just 30 minutes off 42 balls. Rajesh Puri was the more aggressive as he hit eight boundaries in his unbeaten knock of 41 runs scored off only 34 balls. He hit Shakti Singh for three boundaries off successive balls.

At close of play, Haryana had an overall lead of 192 runs with seven second innings wickets in hand.