Rajkot: Ravindra Jadeja, who was ignored for the ODI series against New Zealand, made a statement with an unbeaten 150 for Saurashtra on the first day of their Group B match against Jammu and Kashmir in the Ranji Trophy on Saturday.
Jadeja, who has not played for India since the Test series in Sri Lanka two months ago, struck his eighth first-class hundred to take Saurashtra to a commanding 428 for four at stumps on Day 1.
The all-rounder shared a mammoth 281-run stand for the fourth wicket with Sheldon Jackson, who smashed 181 off 156 balls.
Jadeja hit 18 boundaries and two sixes during his innings, while Jackson smashed 22 fours and seven sixes .
The southpaw did not play in Saurashtra's Ranji Trophy opener against Haryana at Rohtak.
Jadeja did not play the ODI series in Sri Lanka before being ignored for both the ODI and T20I series against Australia.
Test specialist and Saurashtra captain Cheteshwar Pujara perished cheaply as he was dismissed after scoring 13, while new recruit Robin Uthappa was dismissed for 37 in only his second innings for the team.
Saurashtra was in a spot of bother at 59 for three before Jackson and Jadeja rallied their team with some attacking batting.
Group B Brief scores:
Saurashtra 1st innings: 428 for 4 in 90 overs (Jackson 181, Jadeja 150 not out).
At Jaipur: Rajasthan 1st innings: 250 for 4 in 90 overs (Amitkumar Gautam 103 not out ) vs Jharkhand.
At Nadia: Kerala 1st innings: 208 all out in 20 overs (Sanju Samson 51; Piyush Chawla 5/69) vs Gujarat 1st innings: 60 for 2.
Rana, Rawat boost Delhi on Day 1
New Delhi: Young guns Nitish Rana (89) and Anuj Rawat (74) continued their good form as Delhi reached 318 for six against Railways at stumps on day one of the Ranji Trophy group A encounter.
All-rounder Mannan Sharma (68 not out) also registered his second fifty in as many matches.
Rana and Rawat carried on from where they had left off against Assam in the opening encounter after Delhi's top three Gautam Gambhir (2), Unmukt Chand (11) and Dhruv Shorey (16)
were dimissed cheaply with scoreboard reading 44.
Nitish, who faced 145 balls, hit 12 boundaries as he again peppered the off-side field with cut shots and some flowing drives on the on-side.
Along with debutant Himmat Singh (45), Nitish added 109 runs for the fourth wicket.
Himmat, in fact, hit off-spinner Avinash Yadav in the second tier of the dressing room for a big six.
However, Himmat missed a chance to score a half-century on debut when he was caught behind trying to cut Avinash.
After his impressive debut, Rawat looked more assured alongside Rana, playing both cuts and drives on the off-side.
As Nitish was looking on course for his second hundred, he came down the track to a flighted delivery from Shivakant Shukla to be stumped 11 short of three figure mark.
Just like last match, the two left-handers Rawat and Mannan batted with ease. The low bounce of the pitch and slowness made it easy to adjust.
Rawat again showed good temperament as he faced 152 balls before Anureet Singh (3 for 71) got him at the fag end of the day.
Group A Brief Scores:
Delhi 318 for 6 (Nitish Rana 89, Anuj Rawat 74, Mannan Sharma 68 batting, Anureet Singh 3/71) vs Railways.
At Mysore: Assam 144 all out in 59.1 overs (Gokul Sharma 55; Shreyas Gopal 3 for 43) vs Karnataka 77/0 in 30 overs (R Samarth 47 not out).
At Hyderabad: Hyderabad versus Uttar Pradesh. No play on day one.
Smit Patel, Yashpal rally Tripura
Chennai: Smit Patel (99) and Yashpal Singh (96) missed out on centuries, but helped Tripura recover after a shaky start to reach 244 for seven at stumps on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Group C match against Tamil Nadu.
Sent into bat by the home side, Tripura was dealt an early blow when Bishal Singh nicked the very first ball from K Vignesh to wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik. Udiyan Bose, who made
a century in the rain-affected opening game against Odisha, fell to L Vignesh for 2 to leave the team at 18 for two.
R D Banik and Patel added 23 runs before the former was bowled by Rahil Shah for 17.
This brought together the experienced Yashpal Singh and Patel, the 'professionals' in the side. The duo gained in confidence gradually and defied the Tamil Nadu attack which included Test all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin.
Patel, who was part of the India team that won the Under-19 World Cup in 2012, and Singh played several attractive strokes in their 162-run partnership.
The 24-year-old Patel fell while going for a big hit off Washington Sundar's bowling and was well caught by J Kousik, one short of a well-deserved ton.
Abhijit Dey fell five runs later, trapped leg-before by Sundar for a duck.
Yashpal Singh provided Ashwin his first wicket of the innings when he edged a catch to Dinesh Karthik for 96.
Gurinder Singh fell in the 88th over as Tamil Nadu hit back towards the end of play after a tough second session.
For the host, K Vignesh and Sundar picked up two wickets each while Ashwin, L Vignesh and Shah got one scalp each.
Coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar said at the end of the day that Murali Vijay didn't play the game owing to a neck spasm and a decision to leave him out was taken in the morning.
Further, he said Vijay was expected to be ready for the next game.
Group C Brief scores:
Tripura 244 for 7 in 90 overs (Smit Patel 99, Yashpal Singh 96, K Vignesh 2 for 36, Washington Sundar 2 for 40) vs Tamil Nadu.
At Indore: Madhya Pradesh 250 for 5 in 89 overs (Naman Ojha 99 not out, Ankit Sharma 63 not out, Akash Parkar 2 for 48) vs Mumbai.
At Vadodara: Baroda 247 for 7 in 90 overs (Kedar Devdhar 93, Vishnu Solanki 60, B Ayyappa 3 for 46) vs Andhra Pradesh.
Ghosh's century puts Bengal in control
Raipur: Opener Koushik Ghosh struck his maiden first-class hundred on his return to the side after three and half years as Bengal were comfortably placed at 283 for two against Chhattisgarh in a Group D Ranji Trophy encounter.
Playing only his second game for Bengal, left-handed Ghosh scored 114 off 221 deliveries adding 159 runs for the opening stand with another southpaw Abhishek Raman, who made 94.
Ghosh also added 98 runs for the second wicket with Sudeep Chatterjee (58 not out), who once again looked in fine nick having scored hundred in the opening round encounter against Services.
Chhattisgarh captain Mohammed Kaif used as many as eight bowlers but didn't get much help from a placid Veer Narayan Singh Stadium wicket.
Ghosh and Raman were both cautious but they managed to punish the loose deliveries, hitting 11 and 13 boundaries respectively.
Raman was unlucky to miss out on a maiden hundred as he was caught by Amandeep Khare off debutant Shubham Singh's bowling.
Ghosh, who came in place of Abhimanyu Easwaran, currently on India 'A' duty, grabbed the golden opportunity with both hands as he hit some good drives and also used his feet well.
He was unlucky to get run out during the final hour of play.
Skipper Manoj Tiwary, playing his 100th first-class game, was unbeaten on 14 at stumps alongside Chatterjee, who has hit six boundaries in 87 balls so far.
Group D Brief scores:
Bengal 1st innings: 283 for 2 (Koushik Ghosh 114, Abhishek Raman 94, Sudeep Chatterjee 58 not out) vs Chhattisgarh.
Goa 1st innings: 255 all out (Shagun Kamat 36, Pankaj Jaiswal 4/59) vs Himachal Pradesh: 2/0.
Punjab 1st innings: 161 all out (Abhishek Gupta 89, Lalit Yadav 3-47, S Neral 3/48) vs Vidarbha 1st innings: 106 for one (Sanjay Ramaswamy 52).
