Bahutule, Kulkarni rout Delhi

Spinners Sairaj Bahutule and Nilesh Kulkarni exploited an ill-prepared pitch to rout Delhi for a meagre 199 on the first day of their Ranji Trophy Elite Group 'A' league cricket match in New Delhi on Saturday.

Opener Gautam Gambhir fell four runs short of his second successive century, but Delhi's batting crumbled with the pitch after his dismissal in the post-lunch session.

Left-arm spinner Kulkarni (4-62) licked the cream of Delhi's batting while captain Bahutule (5-45) picked up the crucial wickets of Gambhir and Rajat Bhatia (27), who was the only batsman in the middle order to show a semblance of authority over the bowlers, before cleaning up the tail.

At stumps, drawn three overs before the scheduled close on account of bad light, Mumbai were 15 for no loss with Vinayak Mane and Wasim Jaffer on seven each.

The hype over the Jamia Millia Islamia University staging its maiden first-class fixture became an anti-climax as the top layer of the pitch began to peel off from the start. Going by their pre-match comments, the pitch deceived the managements of both teams.

Delhi had no hesitation batting first after winning the toss, a decision they quickly rued. Spin was introduced in the eighth over, and slow bowlers accounted for 51 of the 72 overs bowled in the Delhi innings. That meant that one could see little of debutant Munaf Patel, the much talked about fast bowler from Bharuch.

Kulkarni struck in his very first over as the ball spun and bounced wickedly to nick the outside edge of Test batsman Aakash Chopra on its way to wicket-keeper Vinayak Samant.

That was the first of five dismissals for Samant, who, in the given conditions, did an admirable job behind the stumps.

Delhi's collapse was not entirely because of the Jamia track, however. For, after Chopra fell, Gambhir and Salil Oberoi showed good application in handling the situation in the morning session.

But from 109 for two at lunch, Delhi slipped to 181 for six by tea -- a combination of poor batting technique and disconcerting bounce leading to their downfall.

Gambhir (96, 115b, 11x4, 1x6) and Oberoi (9, 77b, 86m) put on 73 runs for the second wicket. While the former adopted attack as the best form of defence, the latter played second fiddle to perfection.

But the left-handed Gambhir, who had scored 147 runs against Uttar Pradesh in the previous match at Kanpur, fell soon after lunch.

The India international might have been a bit overzealous in trying to complete his hundred and played a pre-determined sweep against Bahutule, only to be caught at short fine-leg.

The other batsmen followed in his footsteps, wrong shot selection bringing their downfall.

Bhatia caused a brief flutter with his counter-attacking display. The former Tamil Nadu player was in fine nick during his 106 minute stay at the crease, and his felicity in tackling the spinners was a contrast to the travails of his team-mates.

Scoreboard:

Delhi 1st innings
A Chopra c Samant b Kulkarni              6
G Gambhir c Kulkarni b Bahutule          96
S Oberoi b Patel                          9
M Manhas c Samant b Bahutule             12
A Jadeja c Samant b Kulkarni             12
R Bhatia st Samant b Bahutule            27
V Dahiya c Samant b Kulkarni             16
Sarandeep Singh c and b Kulkarni         11
R Sanghvi LBW b Bahutule                  1
A Nehra b Bahutule                        4
A Bhandari not out                        1

Extras: (lb-3, nb-1)                       4

Total: (all out in 79 overs)             199

Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-92, 3-111, 4-134, 5-138, 6-173, 8-188, 8-194, 9-194.

Bowling: Munaf Patel 12-1-38-1, Robin Morris 5-2-11-0, Nilesh Kulkarni 30-6-62-4, Ramesh Powar 11-2-40-0, Sairaj Bahutule 21-3-45-5.

Mumbai 1st innings
V Mane batting                            7
W Jaffer batting                            7

Extras: (nb-1)                             1

Total: (for no loss in 6 overs)           15

Bowling: Ashish Nehra 3-1-3-0, Sarandeep Singh 3-0-12-0.