Ranji Roundup: Ishant sizzles, Bengal in driver's seat

A round-up of Ranji matches played on Saturday 

Delhi leave Maharashtra in tatters Ishant Sharma gave a timely reminder to the selectors with a hostile spell of fast bowling as Delhi reduced Maharashtra to 59 for 8 after scoring a healthy 419 in the first innings of a Ranji Tropohy group D encounter.

Despite more than 40 overs of play being lost, Delhi have a fair chance of finishing the match by third day with visitors till 360 runs in arrears.

With Bhuvneshwar Kumar not playing the second Test due to his marriage, Ishant has a fair chance of making it to the playing XI after doing his hard yards in the Ranji Trophy.

He now has 18 wickets in his fourth game and bowled enough number of overs in more or less batting friendly wickets.

His figures of 6-2-14-3 is a testimony to the damage he inflicted on the psyche of the Maharashtra batsman.

There was a short break due to bad light but once play resumed, Maharashtra lost three quick wickets to Yadav (2/2) and Manan Sharma (1/4) for addition of only seven runs.

Earlier, young Nitish Rana's career-best 174 off 264 propelled Delhi past 400, it was the turn of the bowlers led by Ishant to do the star turn on the second day of the match.

Rana's innings had 18 boundaries and four sixes as he added 104 runs for the sixth wicket with debutant Lalit Yadav (52).

Brief Scores

Group A

In Delhi: Delhi 1st Innings 419 (Nitish Rana 174, Rishabh Pant 99, Lalit Yadav 52, Satyajeet Bachchav 4/87)

Maharashtra 1st innings 59/8 (Ishant Sharma 3/14, Lalit Yadav 2/2, Navdeep Saini 2/21)

In Guwahati: Hyderabad 1st innings 326 (BP sandeep 84, Ambati Rayudu 83, Akash Bhandari 71, Arup Das 5/112)

Assam 1st Innings 136 (Gokul Sharma 39, Mohammed Mudassir 5/36) and (f/o) 36/2.

In Kanpur: Karnataka 642/7 (Dega Nishcal 195, Manish Pandey 238, Mayank Agarwal 90, Karun Nair 62, Imtiaz Ahmed 3/101).

Raman, Easwaran put Bengal in driver's seat against Punjab

Openers Abhishek Raman and Abhimanyu Easwaran wore down Punjab bowling with patient centuries as Bengal dominated proceedings to reach 309 for 3 on the second day of the Ranji Trophy group D encounter.

Left-handed Raman remained unbeaten 149 and added 222 with India prospect Easwaran (117) for the opening stand. Bengal currently enjoy a lead of 162 runs and would be hoping to at least consolidate it to 250 runs.

Raman, who got his maiden hundred this season played 286 balls hitting 15 boundaries and a six in the process. Easwaran, who is national selector's radar showed enormous patience playing 215 balls with 11 boundaries and a six.

None of the Punjab bowlers could make an impact as the Bengal openers played them with ease.

Veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh (0/69 in 17 overs) did not trouble the batsmen much on his first-class comeback as he could only bowl a single maiden over.

Brief Scores:

At Amritsar: Punjab 1st Innings 147

Bengal 1st Innings 309/3 (Abhishek Raman 149 batting, Abhimanyu Easwaran 117,

At Porvorim: Goa 1st innings 239; Vidarbha 1st Innings 199/2 (Sanjay Ramaswamy 87, Wasim Jaffer 70).

At Raipur: Chattisgarh 1st Innings 130 & 24/0

Services 1st Innings 272 (Vikas Hathwala 76, Shahnawaz Hussain 5/59). PTI KHS

Saurashtra take slender 7-run lead over Kerala

Uthappa hit 86 as Saurashtra managed to take a slender seven-run first innings lead over Kerala, scoring 232 all out on the second day of their Group B Ranji Trophy match in Thiruvananthapuram.

After bundling out Kerala for 225, Saurashtra struggled to post 232 before their first innings folded.

At stumps, Kerala were 69 for one in their second innings with Jalaj Saxena unbeaten on 29 and Rohan Prem on 27.

For Kerala, Sijomon Joseph finished with figures of four for 43 while Basil Thampi chipped in with three for 36.

Brief scores:

Kerala: 225 & 69/1 in 19 overs

Saurashtra 1st innings: 232 all out in 78.5 overs (Robin Uthappa 86, Snell Patel 49; Sijomon Joseph 4/43, Basil Thampi 3/36).

At Surat: Rajasthan 1st innings: 153

Gujarat 1st innings: 450 for three (Priyank Panchal 152, Parthiv Patel 119 batting, Bhargav Merai 110).

At Rohtak: Haryana 1st innings: 184 (Amit Mishra 41, Himanshu Rana 35; Ram Dayal 5/57, Mohammed Mudhasir 4/56).

J&K 1st innings: 175 for 7 in 53 overs (Ahmed Bandy 67).