Munaf and Powar destroy Kerala
Kerala suffered an ignominious defeat at the Wankhede Stadium, and this historic first encounter with Mumbai ended on a sad note
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Kerala suffered an ignominious defeat at the Wankhede Stadium, and their historic first encounter with Mumbai ended on a sad note. Mumbai added 50 runs in the morning, with Vinod Kambli completing a fine century. Prasanth Chandran's 7 for 71 turned out to be the highlight of the match for Kerala. Then came 50 overs of doom when Munaf Patel (3-34) and Ramesh Powar - with exceptional figures of 4 for 16 in six overs - gained Mumbai a bonus point with an innings win.
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Delhi relied on the pace-spin combination of Amit Bhandari (4-57) and Sarandeep Singh (3-45) as Baroda followed on at Vadodara. Jacob Martin's 92 was the only melodious note in a batting dirge as Delhi pressed for their first win of the season. Martin hit 13 fours in his 167-ball innings, and Baroda will need similar efforts to prevent a heavy defeat tomorrow.
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Ankur Kakkar's patience and valuable contributions from the tail enabled Punjab to nudge past the Railways score at Delhi. Pankaj Dharmani and Reetinder Singh Sodhi began the day on a positive note as they added 56 runs for the fourth wicket. With the score at 191 for 3, Jai Prakash Yadav triggered a mini-collapse by snapping up three wickets in the space of five runs. But Railways saw all their hopes of a first-innings lead gradually evaporate as Gagandeep Singh and Amit Uniyal put on 85 for the seventh wicket, with Gagandeep capping a fine performance on the field with a round half-century. By gaining the first-innings lead, Punjab took a big step towards recording their first outright win of the season.
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Gnaneswara Rao's fighting hundred at Kanpur could not prevent UP from gaining a vital 30-run lead. Raja Prasad (48) played ally to Gnaneswara in a 109-run stand. Ashish Zaidi (4 for 92) finished as the most successful bowler for the hosts. Though UP lost three wickets before the close, their 103-run lead just gives them the edge.
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A solid batting display from Bengal, lead by Arindam Das, put them in a relatively cushy position against Hyderabad at Kolkota. Sandip Sanyal clubbed a boundary-laden half-century but the acceleration was provided by the lower order. Saurasish Lahiri (41*), Laxmi Ratan Shukla - who has been up and down the order this season, and made 34 here - and Utpal Chatterjee (31) played breezy knocks and took them to a commanding 388. Shivaji Yadav's teasing offbreaks accounted for five wickets, but they came at a hefty price of 124 runs.
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Rajasthan collapsed in a huge heap at the KL Saini Stadium in Jaipur, then Gujarat set off confidently in pursuit of 174 and their second victory of the season. Things were not so bleak for Rajasthan in the morning, though. S Mathur lapped up the last Gujarat wicket to finish with a fine six-wicket haul, and a lead of 63 seemed priceless. Then came 41.3 overs in which Rajasthan were skittled out for 110, Siddharth Trivedi and Lalit Patel taking three victims each. Gujarat need 80 runs to wrap up the game tomorrow, and with Akash Christian still unbeaten they will expect to canter home.
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Tamil Nadu stood on the threshold of victory at Chennai, and need only four wickets to wrap things up. S Badrinath upped the ante with a quickfire century, building on the good foundation laid by Somasetty Suresh, his captain. TN declared at 277 for 6, setting Assam a humungous 453 to chase, and snapped up six wickets before stumps, to close in on their third victory of the campaign.
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Kaushik Aphale and Hrishikesh Kanitkar bludgeoned 273 for the third wicket at Pune, as the Goa bowlers toiled all day without much reward. Aphale's effort included 20 fours and two sixes, while Kanitkar laced 16 boundaries in a breezy knock. Dheeraj Jadhav - who had made a double-century in the previous match - fell 11 short of a hundred this time, and Maharashtra finished with a round 500 at stumps.
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J&K marginally fell short of Tripura's total despite fine half-centuries by Dhruv Mahajan and Manzoor Dar at Jammu. Aashish Kapoor, the former India offspinner, was the pick of the bowlers with five scalps. Tripura trudged along in their second innings, and had lost three wickets for 83 by the close.
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Shankar Rao finished with ten wickets in the match as Vidharbha plummeted to 146 in their second innings at Nagpur. Only Alind Naidu and AV Deshpande passed 20, and it took only 43.5 overs for Vidharbha to slide to defeat. Chandrashekar Atram threatened a minor miracle when he reduced Bihar to 15 for 3, before the two Kumars, Rajiv and Ratan, knocked off the 55 needed for victory.
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Rashmi Ranjan Parida cracked 50, and three other batsmen got close, as HP were set a daunting 440 for victory in the final innings at Cuttack. Shiv Sunder Das, Subrat Behera and Sanjay Satpathy passed 40, to put Orissa in command. Sangram Singh was the most successful bowler for HP, with 4 for 28. HP lost two wickets before the close, with Sandeep Sharma's elegant 40 providing a vestige of hope.
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The Services tail winkled out a slender two-run lead before the bowlers gave them the upper hand by the end of the third day's play at Delhi. Yashpal Singh fell after making a fine 77 (169 for 7), but the last three batsmen helped Services scrape past Saurashtra's first-innings total. Nayan Doshi, the left-arm spinner, was the pick of the bowlers with five wickets. Saurashtra found the wiles of Fazil Mohammad (3-34) too hot to handle when they batted the second time round, and stuttered to 79 for 5 by stumps, thus handing Services a distinct advantage.