Dharmani ton places Punjab in driver's seat

Pankaj Dharmani's 128 and Punjab's batting depth saw them take a firm grip in their North Zone Ranji Trophy league match against Services on Saturday. By stumps on the second day, Punjab after scoring 430 to obtain a first innings lead of 343 runs, had taken one Services wicket for 69 runs.

Dharmani who was 92 overnight was out this morning for 128. Batting a shade over five hours, the 26-year-old prolific run getter in domestic cricket who has played in one ODI for India, faced 233 balls and hit 20 fours and a six.

Dharmani and the other overnight batsman Reetinder Sodhi (35) fell in successive overs, but Harminder Jagnu (28) and Harbhajan Singh (52) kept the innings going with a seventh wicket partnership of 92 runs off 24.4 overs. Harbhajan's bright knock came up off only 63 balls and he hit seven of them to the ropes. The No 9 batsman Sandeep Sanwal also did his bit in prolonging the agony of the Services players by hitting an unbeaten 41 off 53 balls with five fours and a six. He and last man Gagandeep Singh (14) stretched the Punjab lead by adding 40 runs off 8.3 overs.

In arrears by a big margin, Services were off to a fair start with openers Deepak Sehrawat (32 not out) and Narender Singh (21) putting on 47 runs off 19.3 overs. Sanjay Verma (6) kept Sehrawat company at stumps with Services still needing 274 runs to avoid an innings defeat.