J & K in deep trouble

Patiala: Jammu and Kashmir were in deep trouble at 15 for 5 at draw of stumps against Punjab on the first day of their first league encounter of the North Zone Cooch Behar (under-19) cricket tournament , at the Dhruv Pandove Stadium here on Wednesday.

Earlier, batting first, Punjab virtually massacred the J & K bowling attack by piling up a massive 375 for three in their first essay. The architects of the formidable batting display were openers Munish Sharma (173, 314 mts, 257 balls, 14 fours & 4 sixes) and Ravneet Rickey (109, 190 mts, 168 balls, 13 fours) before skipper Yuvraj Singh put an end to the misery of the J & K bowlers by declaring the moment Munish Sharma was stumped going for a lofted shot.

While Ravneet Rickey was more resilient in his approach, the other opener Munish Sharma displayed shades of flamboyance to play an impressive innings. Even as Ravneet Rickey, after putting on 195 run for the first wicket stand, looked all set to farm the bowlers, he was out to a poor shot, trying to flick a ball pitched far away from the leg stump. The ball, after ricocheting off Rickey's left pad, clipped the leg bail to end a superb innings.

At the end of a hard and long days play, the only J & K bowler who commanded some respect was off-spinner Sohail Songhoi who kept on experimenting, despite the bltitzkrieg launched by the hosts batsmen, to finish with 2 for 63.

In reply to Punjab' innings, four of the five batsmen of J & K could not even open their account as Amit Uniyal and Gagandeep Singh ran through their batting lineup. Amit Uniyal took three wickets giving away only 7 runs and Gagandeep captured two wickets at the cost of just 8 runs.

Rajiv Nayyar will lead Himachal Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy this year.The other members are Jaswant Rai, Rahul Panta, Parveen Sharma, Nischal Gaur, Shakti Singh, Ajay Roy, Satya Parkash, Ravinder Gir, Anurag Sharma, Arun Verma, Ajay Bhardwaj, Sangram Singh, Anil Dass and Yashvinder Pal Singh.