Punjab dominate opening day's play

Punjab completely dominated the first day's play of their three day North Zone Cooch Behar Trophy (under-19) match against Jammu & Kashmir at the Dhruv Pandove stadium in Patiala on Tuesday. At stumps they were 140 for two in reply to J & K's first innings total of 126.

Winning the toss, J & K ran into trouble against A Uniyal and G Mandora and lost six wickets for 51 runs. A seventh wicket partnership of 64 runs off 24.4 overs between V Kaw (38) and A Mongotra (28) produced a recovery of sorts. But then three wickets fell with the total on 115 and J & K were all out for a highly adequate score. Uniyal (3 for 19) and Mandora (3 for 23) were the wreckers-in-chief while SP Singh hastened the end of the innings by taking two wickets for two runs off 3.4 overs, of which two were maidens.

When Punjab batted, SP Singh (60 not out) and opener Binwant Singh (41) with a second wicket stand of 77 runs off 14 overs steered the side to a strong position by close. While Binwant faced 51 balls and hit five fours, the more aggressive SP Singh faced 69 balls and hit five fours and three sixes.