Baroda inch close to first-innings lead

Baroda 259 for 5(Satyajit Parab 113) trail Uttar Pradesh 269 by 10 runs
Scorecard

Baroda took their time on the second day to inch towards Uttar Pradesh's 269, and the two points that would take them closer to a semi-final spot in the Ranji Trophy Super League. Anchored by Satyajit Parab's 14th century, a mix of elegant drives and safety-first tactics, Baroda ended the day needing 11 runs to get the all-important two points with five wickets in hand.

While their scoring rate did little to suggest they were looking to translate a good first-innings bowling performance into an outright win, on the other hand UP's Praveen Kumar toiled over five spells to try and get some response from a wicket that behaved like an unyielding detainee does with an interrogator.

The most interesting piece of action came from one spellbinding Kumar over, the seventh of the day, to Connor Williams, the left-hand opener. Kumar may as well have gone up and asked Williams to hold the bat straight while he took aim at it, as did Dennis Lillee to Sunil Gavaskar, so comprehensively was Williams beaten on five of the six deliveries.

The first ball landed on the off stump line and moved away, drawing Williams into a play-and-miss. The second ball was a bit wide, Williams let it go. Over the next four balls, Kumar kept getting straighter and straighter, swinging the ball across Williams's body. There was no way Williams could have not played at any of the four, and he missed every one of them. The last ball Kumar pitched outside leg but he still couldn't get the edge. The only thing that kept it from being a perfect over was one that would have come in and hit Williams's pads.

Had this been a chess match, Williams would have resigned after so many checks. The check mate came in Kumar's next over, when he finally found wood on the way.

Kumar was exhausted by the time he got the wicket and had also been warned twice for running on to the danger area. It showed on him as he couldn't carry on with the same intensity for too long. Till then he and Shalabh Srivastava had kept the scoring rate in check -the first wicket had fallen for 34 in the 21st over, all but one of which were bowled by the duo.

After they were taken off, however, the Baroda batsmen scored a bit more freely. Parab broke the shackles with quality drives - when he off-drove he stood upright and when he on-drove, he flicked his wrists to keep them down. Parab was lucky when an edge off Srivastava fell just short of Mohammad Amir Khan, the wicketkeeper, who could probably have dived forward. Another chance came for Parab when he was on 84. He stepped out to Piyush Chawla and the edge flew past the slips. He would soon hole out to mid-off off the same bowler.

Quite surprisingly Kaif held the introduction of Chawla back for 52 overs. Chawla was expected to bowl when both Srivastava and Kumar were taken off, but Kaif went ahead with part-time seamer Rohit Prakash and left-arm spinner Ali Murtaza. When he was finally brought on, though, he struck with his third ball. Rakesh Solanki, trying to unsettle him, charged at him, but a bit too soon. Chawla saw him and bowled a flatter leg-break, which beat Murtaza and crashed into the stumps.

The afternoon session was the easiest for batting as Baroda picked up the pace and scored 124 runs in 42 overs. In the final session UP took the new ball as soon as it became due and Kumar struck with it immediately. He moved the ball away from Jacob Martin, who was looking good but got lured into the drive and edged it for Murtaza to complete a good shoulder-high catch at third slip, exactly the kind of catch Martin had dropped twice yesterday.

At the end of the day Pinal Shah had scored 31 and Irfan Pathan junior, whose arrival for the last eight overs had brought the crowd to life, had scored a safe nine off 24 balls. Baroda should be able to get the first-innings lead, but any urgency in going for four points after that doesn't look forthcoming if the run-rate so far is any indication.