A round-up of Day 2 of the Ranji Trophy matches on Thursday.
Shreyas's double century puts Mumbai in control
Shreyas Iyer continued with his red-hot form, smashing a stroke-filled 233 to lead Mumbai to a massive 602/4 declared in their Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match against Odisha, in Mumbai on Thursday.
Iyer's second consecutive hundred in Ranji Trophy also turned out to be his highest score in first-class cricket as the right-hander hammered Odisha all around the park at a strike rate of nearly 103 at the Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy in Bandra-Kurla complex in Mumbai.
Left out of the Indian team for the five-match Test series in Australia, Iyer has sent out a strong message to the selectors with back to back centuries.
Iyer's knock was well complimented by comeback man Siddhesh Lad's 169 not out, who hit 17 fours in his 337-ball innings.
Mumbai added another 217 runs to their overnight score of 385/3 with Iyer and Lad putting on an overall 354 runs for the fourth wicket -- a record for the 42-time winners in the Ranji Trophy.
Home spinners Shams Mulani (2/52) and Himanshu Singh (2/22) then provided crucial breakthroughs to reduce the visitors to 146/5.
Odisha are still trailing by another 456 runs in the first essay and have Sandeep Pattanaik (73 not out) and Debabrata Pradhan (7) at the crease.
Shardul Thakur provided an early breakthrough when he cleaned up the Odisha opener Swastik Samal for a seven-ball duck.
Odisha recovered strongly as Anurag Sarangi and Pattanaik put on 107 for the second wicket until the former was cleaned up by lanky spinner Himanshu Singh.
Soon after, Mulani had Odisha skipper Govinda Poddar (0) caught behind and Himanshu had Biplab Samantaray (0) caught by Ajinkya Rahane at first slip.
In Pune, Maharashtra slipped to 185 all-out against Services' 293 in the first innings as the visitors took a big 108-run lead in the first innings at the MCA Stadium.
Services were 15/0 in second essay, with an overall lead of 123 runs.
After Hitesh Walunj's five for 103 helped Maharashtra restrict Services, Amit Shukla returned 7/65 as the hosts were bowled out for 185 despite skipper Ankit Bawane's 73.
At Shillong, visitors Jammu and Kashmir were 16/1, needing another 59 runs to win after hosts Meghalaya folded for another low score of 195 in the second innings, setting a target of 75 to win.
J&K, who had shot Meghalaya out for a mere 73 in the first innings, made 194 in reply to take a 121-run lead.
At Agartala, hosts Tripura were placed strongly at 192 for one in reply to Baroda's 235 in the first innings. Bikram Kumar Das (97) fell short of his century but Jiwanjot Singh (58 not out) and Tejasvi Jaiswal (34 not out) took them to 192 for one, trailing by another 43 runs.
Brief Scores:
At Mumbai: Odisha 146/5 in 49 overs (Sandeep Pattanaik 73 not out) vs Mumbai 602/4 decl. (Angkrish Raghuvanshi 92, Siddhesh Lad 169, Shreyas Iyer 233, Suryansh Shedge 79).
At Pune: Services 15/0 and 293 all out vs Maharashtra 185 Ankit Bawane 73; Amit Shukla 7/65) by 123 runs.
At Shillong: Jammu and Kashmir 16/1 & 194 vs Meghalaya 73 & 195 (Arpit Subhas 74; Auqib Nabi 5/60).
At Agartala: Baroda 235 (Jyotsnil Singh 46, Atit Sheth 78; Abhijit Sarkar 5/74) vs Tripura 192/1 in 51 overs (Bikram kumar Das 97, Jiwanjot Singh 58*).
Manohar's fifty rescues Karnataka
Abhinav Manohar made a determined unbeaten fifty to rescue Karnataka after a top-order collapse, taking the hosts to 155/5 against Bengal on Day 2 of their Ranji Trophy Group C match in Bengaluru on Thursday.
Manohar was unbeaten on 50 off 73 balls, putting on 58 runs for the unbroken sixth wicket stand with Shreyas Gopal (23 not out) as Karnataka recovered from a wobbly 97/5. They still trail Bengal by 146 runs.
Bengal, resuming from overnight 249/5, collapsed in the morning as they were bowled out for 301. Pacer Vasuki Koushik (5/38) and leg-spinner Shreyas (3/87) combined to pluck the remaining five Bengal wickets for 52 runs.
But that joy was short-lived as Bengal bowlers Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal (2/53) and R Vivek (2/44) rocked the Karnataka top-order with regular strikes.
The hosts suffered a double blow as they lost their most experienced batters -- captain Mayank Agarwal (17) and Manish Pandey (0) -- in the space of six balls.
Agarwal was cleaned up by Jaiswal while Pandey's two-ball innings was snapped by Vivek.
However, Karnataka found some fight through Manohar, a white ball specialist, and Shreyas, who returned to the state side after spending last season with Kerala, as they negated 18 overs to keep their side afloat.
Brief scores:
In Bengaluru: Karnataka 155/5 in 51 overs (Abhinav Manohar 50 not out) vs Bengal 301 (Anustup Majumdar 101, Sudip Chatterjee 55, Shahbaz Ahmed 55; Vasuki Kaushik 5/38).
In Thumba: Uttar Pradesh 162 all out vs Kerala 340/7 in 110 overs (Sachin Baby 83, Salman Nizar 74 not out; Shivam Mavi 2/56, Shivam Sharma 2/77).
In Patna: Bihar 131/4 in 42 overs (Babul Kumar 47) vs Madhya Pradesh 616 all out (Shubham Sharma 240, Venkatesh Iyer 174; Himanshu Singh 5/196, Sachin Kumar Singh 4/211)
In Rohtak: Punjab 73/3 in 18 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 23 not out) & 141 vs Haryana 114 and 243 all out.
Shorey's century leads Vidarbha's strong reply
Opener Dhruv Shorey compiled a neat century to lead Vidarbha's strong reply as the hosts were well-placed on 283/2 at stumps on Day 2 after bowling out Himachal Pradesh for 307 in the Ranji Trophy match in Nagpur on Thursday.
Shorey, who switched to Vidarbha ahead of the 2023-24 season after playing for 10 years for Delhi, led the way for Vidarbha and was unbeaten on 108 at stumps.
Karun Nair, who parted ways with Karnataka to join Vidarbha last season, was unbeaten on 76.
The duo of Shorey and Nair added 142 runs for the third wicket to put Vidarbha in a commanding position as they now trail Himachal by just 24 runs.
Vidarbha began on a solid note with Shorey and Atharva Taide (33) putting on 50 runs for before Mukul Negi gave Himachal their first breakthrough by having the latter trapped in front of the wicket.
Shorey found an able ally in Danish Malewar as the two added 91 runs for the second wicket to lay a strong foundation for Vidarbha.
Medium pacer Vaibhav Arora brought some cheer for Himachal as he dismissed Malewar for a 72-ball 59, during which the batter struck 10 boundaries.
However, Himachal's joy was short-lived as Shorey and Nair handled the Himachal bowlers without much difficulty to lift their team to a position of strength by the end of day's play.
Shorey, who faced 192 balls for his knock, hit only six fours and ran a lot of singles and twos during his stay in the middle.
Malewar on the other hand, found the fence 10 times during his 72-ball knock. Shorey's two partnerships, with Nair and Malewar, went a long way in helping Vidarbha take the upper hand in the Elite Group B game.
Earlier, resuming the day on 263/6, Himachal added 44 runs to their overnight total before being bowled out in their first innings.
Overnight batting on 47, captain Rishi Dhawan was the chief contributor with the bat for Himachal as he top-scored with a 73-run knock that came off 135 balls.
Mukul Negi, the other overnight batter, fell for 38 while the last three men could not contribute anything with the bat for Himachal Pradesh.
Left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey was the most successful bowler for Vidarbha, returning figures of 5/71 in 34 overs, while there were two wickets apiece for Praful Hinge (2/57) and Akshay Wakhare (2/42).
Brief scores:
In Nagpur: Himachal Pradesh 1st inns 307 (Rishi Dhawan 73; Harsh Dubey 5/71) vs Vidarbha 1st inns 283/2 in 70 overs (Dhruv Shorey 108 not out, Karun Nair 76).
In Vizianagaram: Uttarakhand 1st inns 338 (Priyanshu Khanduri 112, Avneesh Sudha 86, Ravikumar Samarth 59; Lalith Mohan 4/104) vs Andhra 1st innings 92/4 in 35.5 overs.
In Ahmedabad: Puducherry 1st innings: 361 (Ajay Rohera 80, AKash Kargave 71; Siddharth Desai 4/64) vs Gujarat 1st inns 128/3 in 38 overs (Aarya Desai 66).
In Jaipur: Hyderabad 1st inns 410 (Rahul Radesh 100, Rahul Singh 66; Kukna Ajay Singh 5/139) vs Rajasthan 1st inns 117/1 in 31 overs (Mahipal Lomror 58 not out).
