Ranji Trophy wrap: Rain washes out third day of Mumbai-Himachal tie, Assam fight back against Odisha

The third day of the ongoing Ranji Trophy Group B match between Mumbai and Himachal Pradesh was washed out without a ball being bowled due to wet-outfield at Dharamsala on Wednesday.

Rain and a wet outfield had also washed out the second day’s play of the game on Tuesday at the picturesque HPCA stadium. On Wednesday morning there was bright sunshine but an overnight hailstorm meant that there was a delayed start.

The first inspection was called at 11 am, which was then deferred to 1 pm by match referee Gaurav Vashisht and umpires S Ravi and Vineet Kulkarni. A final inspection was scheduled at 2.30 pm, but before it happened a dark cloud settled above the ground, which forced the umpires to call off the day’s proceedings.

Mumbai are sitting pretty at 372/5 in their first essay, courtesy an unbeaten 226 by in-form Sarfaraz Khan. On the fourth and final day, Sarfaraz would be looking to score consecutive triple hundreds, a rare feat in any kind of cricket. Meanwhile in other Group B encounters, Uttar Pradesh defeated Madhya Pradesh by seven wickets with young opener Aryan Juval hitting an unbeaten 74 in their pursuit of 175 at Indore.

Assam fight back

Openers Kunal Saikia (62*) and Subham Mandal (40*) led Assam’s fightback in the second innings with a century partnership after being forced to follow on by Odisha on the third day in Cuttack.

Assam was bowled out for 238 in reply to Odisha’s first innings score of 436 with Ranjeet Mali (59) and opener Kunal Saikia (53) being the major contributors.

Resuming at the overnight score of 59/3, the visitors slipped to 147/7, losing the wickets of Rishav Das (37) and talented Riyan Parag (43). Wicket-keeper Saikia and Mali, batting at No 9, launched a rearguard action and added 58 runs for the eighth wicket.

After Saikia’s exit, Mali added some important runs relying on some aggressive batting. Asked to follow-on, Assam was provided a solid start by Mandal and Kunal Saikia, who was promoted to open, as they added 102 runs in 31 overs. The visiting team still needs 96 runs to make Odisha bat again.

Bad light ends Bengal-Delhi tie

Hosts Bengal and Delhi fought hard for three points as rain and bad light allowed less than an hour’s play on the penultimate day of their match in Kolkata.

Middle-order batsman Jonty Sidhu was unbeaten on 49 after surviving an lbw off a no-ball, while Subodh Bhati looked edgy for his 25-ball seven as Delhi were 217/7, still trailing Bengal by 101 runs as only 9.3 overs were possible in the entire day.

Both the teams will look to get a first innings lead to secure three points, even as more rain is forecast for the final day. The 53 minutes was full of action with pacer Mukesh Kumar bowling his heart out as Bengal looked to wrap up Delhi, which started at the overnight score of 192 for six.

Mukesh gave the breakthrough by trapping overnight batsman Anuj Rawat for zero in the second over of the day. In the first ball of his next over, Mukesh had Sidhu trapped in front of the middle-stump but on referral, the delivery was deemed no-ball by TV umpire Yeshwant Barde.

The left-handed batsman seemed to have got the benefit of doubt as the bowler looked to have overstepped while landing his heel. A relieved Sidhu smashed Mukesh for three boundaries in that same over to cruise to 49 as Delhi looked in no trouble from there on. But the play had to be stopped at 1.23pm because of bad light.

Early morning showers washed out the first session as the day’s proceedings began only at 12.30pm with Delhi resuming on 192/6. Coach-cum-mentor Arun Lal lashed out at Mukesh for bowling the no-ball and said he would impose a Rs 500 fine from each no-ball bowled at the nets from hereon.

Brief scores:

At Dharamshala: Mumbai 372/5 – No play on day 3.

At New Delhi (Karnail Singh Stadium): Railways 182 (Avinash Yadav 62, Arindam Ghosh 59; Prateek Jain 5/38, Abhimanyu Mithun 4/51) vs Karnataka 199/9 (S Sharath 56*, Devdutt Padikkal 55; Amit Mishra 5/70, Himanshu Sangwan 3/47). Karnataka lead by 17 runs.

At Indore: Madhya Pradesh 230 and 160 (Naman Ojha 41; Yash Dayal 4/52, Ankit Rajpoot 3/48) lost to Uttar Pradesh 216 and 178/3 (Aryan Juyal 74*, Almas Shaukat 54; Kumar Kartikeya Singh 2/49) by seven wickets. UP 6 points, MP 0 points.

At Vadodara: Baroda 154 and 187 lost to Saurashtra 142 and 200/6 (Harvik Desai 49, Arpit Vasavada 48*; L Meriwala 2/35) by four wickets. Saurashtra 6 points, Baroda 0 points.

Odisha 436 (Debabrata Pradhan 79, Abhishek Raut 71, Shantanu Mishra 66, Anurag Sarangi 58, Govinda Poddar 58; Arup Das 4/101, Ranjeet Mali 4/113) vs Assam 238 (Ranjeet Mali 59, Kunal Saikia 53, Riyan Parag 43, Rishav Das 37; Debaratra Pradhan 4/37) and 102/0 (Kunal Saikia 62 batting, Subham Mandal 40*).

At Jammu: Chhattisgarh 270/4 (Harpreet Singh Bhatia 116, Abhimanyu Chauhan 51) vs Jammu & Kashmir. (No play on third day).

At Dehradun: Uttarakhand 109 (Tinu Kundu 3/49) vs Haryana 50/5 (Agrim Tiwari 4/10). (No play on third day).

At Agartala: Tripura 121 (MB Murasingh 24; Manoj Ingale 6/34) and 290 (Pallab Das 77, Milind Kumar 67, Harmeet Singh 46, MB Murasingh 37; A Palkar 5/62, M G Choudhary 3/77) vs Maharashtra 208 (Vishant More 78 not out, Ankit Bawane 62, SM Gugale 34, VV More 30*; Mura Singh 3/246, AS Sarkar 3/59) and 103/2 (SM Gugale 55*).

At Delhi: Services 279 (Raushan Raj 79, Mohit Ahlawat 69, Pulkit Narang 38, Rajat Paliwal 38; Rahul Shukla 7/106) and 259/8 declared (Rahul Singh Gahlaut 82, Devender Lohchab 43) vs Jharkhand 153 (Sumit Kumar 38, Md. Nazim 28; Diwesh Pathania 4/51, Raushan Raj 3/40) and 49 for 1 in 14 overs (Kumar Suraj 27*).

Bengal 318 vs Delhi 217/7 (Dhruv Shorey 65, Jonty Sidhu 49*, Hiten Dalal 40; Mukesh Kumar 3/74).