Mumbai's bowlers have Gujarat gasping

Mumbai's deadly bowling trio of Ramesh Powar, Avishkar Salvi and Swapnil Hazare ripped through hosts Gujarat's batting line-up to leave them gasping at 190 for 9 on the opening day of the four-day Ranji Trophy tie, being played at the Sardar Patel stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad, on Tuesday.

The trio gave no breathing space to the Gujarat batsmen right from the word go. Barring a 53-run third wicket partnership between opener and Team India wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel (47) and Niraj Patel (27), the Gujarat batsmen displayed a spineless performance.

Batting first, Gujarat received two early jolts when opener Nilesh Modi and No 3 batsman Azhar Bilakhia returned to the pavilion with individual contributions of just three runs each in the team's total of 19.

However, Parthiv and Niraj held fort and added 53 runs.

But when the score was 72, Niraj was clean bowled by Swapnil, who claimed the first of his four victims.

Then, Parthiv and captain Mukund Parmar added another 38 runs between them before the former was brilliantly caught by Nilesh Kulkarni off the bowling of Ramesh Powar. After that the hosts continued to lose wickets at regular intervals.

When stumps were drawn for the day, Hemal Vatekar and Jayesh Makla were unbeaten with individual scores of 46 and 1 respectively.

Scorecard

Gujarat (1st innings):
N D Modi c Samant b Salvi 3
P A Patel c Kulkarni b Powar 47
A A Bilakhia c Indulkar b Salvi 3
N K Patel b Hazare 27
M H Parmar c Samant b Hazare 36
A Brahmehtt c Indulkar b Nair 1
H H Watekar not out 46
S K Trivedi c Hazare b Powar 7
H A Majmudar c Samant b Powar 0
A Makda c & b Powar 4
J Makla not out 1.
Extras: (b 1, lb 1, w 8, nb 5) 15
Total: (9 wickets, 90 overs) 190

Fall of wickets: 1-15, 2-19, 3-72, 4-110, 5-115, 6-133, 7-152, 8-158, 9-163.

Bowling: Salvi 21-2-41-2 (1nb, 1w), Hazare 17-2-42-2 (4nb, 3w), Nair 15-7-27-1, Powar 28-8-64-4, Kulkarni 9-4-14-0.

Mumbai: N Kulkarni, A Muzumdar, N Shetty, V Indulkar, S Kukreja, S Marathe, R Powar, A Nair, V Samant, A Salvi, S Hazare.