Tamil Nadu snatch opening day's honours

Tamil Nadu were in the box seat after bowling out Punjab for 258 on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy quarter final match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai today. The highlight of the Punjab innings was an invasion of the outfield by a snake which held up play for a few minutes before some intrepid members of the ground staff ventured to drive it off the ground. In the nine overs that remained, an enterprising run a minute opening wicket stand between S Ramesh and S Sriram took Tamil Nadu to 40 without loss at stumps.

S Sharath won the toss and elected to field on a wicket having a tinge of green and also providing a fair bit of bounce for their four pronged medium pace attack (Kumaran, Mahesh, Gokulakrishnan and Bhatia) to exploit. Robin Singh preferred to attend a video release in Sharjah of Anil Kumble's ten wicket haul rather than give his compatriots here a hand while Ravneet Ricky had to sit out because of a finger injury sustained in the last Super League match against Railways.

The Tamil Nadu attack was unable to make an early breakthrough as Vikram Rathour and Reetinder Sodhi added 56 for the first wicket in almost 16 overs. Rathour was fortunate to be grassed by Madanagopal at second slip off Kumaran with his score on 12 while Sodhi too had an awkward moment when he gloved one, that kicked more than he expected, just short of forward short leg. Mahesh tried bouncing out Rathour by employing two fielders in the deep behind the wicket on the leg side but the batsman refused to jump to the bait. It was Rajat Bhatia who struck first blood when he had Sodhi caught behind by the keeper Reuben Paul for 22.

The contest hottened up when Aashish Kapoor was brought on to try and dislodge his brother in law Vikram Rathour from the crease. Kapoor tossed one up and Rathour drove him through the covers for four to bring up his fifty. But in his next over Kapoor got his man as Rathour, giving him the charge, failed to get hold of the ball and was caught by Mahesh a few yards behind the bowler's head for 57. Punjab went into lunch at 104/2 and off the first ball after resumption, Dharmani was caught behind off Kapoor as he played forward. Yuvraj was dealing only in boundaries, the pick of which was a backfoot drive through extracover, and was caught down the leg side off Kumaran for 44, out of which 40 had come in boundary hits.

A dogged 47 run seventh wicket stand between Harminder Jugnu and Sandeep Sharma then frustrated the Tamil Nadu attack but the final three wickets fell in the space of four runs to terminate the Punjab innings at 258. S Mahesh was the best bowler on offer for Tamil Nadu with figures of 3/55 and Reuben Paul also distinguished himself with four catches behind the sticks. Tamil Nadu's over rate was painfully slow and play had to be extended by an hour and twenty minutes, upto 5.50 p.m.