Ranji Trophy semis | Mumbai, Gujarat take the honours on Day 1

01/01/2017

Kaushik Gandhi and Baba Indrajith hit fifties to help Tamil Nadu post 261-6 at the close on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy semi-final against Mumbai. In the other semi-final, opener Priyank Panchal hit an unbeaten century to help Gujarat post 283-3 against Jharkhand.

Brief scores:

Tamil Nadu: 261 for 6 (B Indrajith 64, K Gandhi 50, Vijay Shankar 41*, A Nayar 2-56) v Mumbai.

Gujarat 283 for 3 (Panchal 144*, Parthiv Patel 62) v Jharkhand.

Mumbai hold the upper hand

Gandhi and Indrajith shared in a 110-run stand for the third wicket to lift Tamil Nadu, opting to bat, after seamers Abhishek Nayar and Balwinder Sandhu dismissed openers Ganga Sridhar Raju and captain Abhinav Mukund, both caught behind, to leave the side struggling at 68-2.

Indrajith notched up his 10th first-class fifty before he was caught behind by Aditya Tare off seamer Shardul Thakur. Later Nayar had Gandhi caught by Praful Waghela.

Mumbai bowlers sent back in-form Dinesh Karthik (16) and Baba Aparajith (9) in the final session to take control of the game even as Vijay Shankar hit an unbeaten 41 to take his side past the 250-run mark.

Thakur and Nayar finished the day with two wickets each.

Panchal puts Gujarat in command

Panchal’s rich run of form continued as he hit 144 not out to take his season tally to 1264, going past Kedar Jadhav (1223) and Wasim Jaffer (1260) to fourth on the list of highest run-scorers in a single Ranji season.

Panchal put on 139 for the third wicket with skipper Parthiv Patel (62) before the latter fell to medium pacer Kaushal Singh at the fag end of the day.

Jharkhand went in with a seam-strong attack and made three changes with Pratyush Singh replacing Anand Singh, leg-spinner Samar Quadri making way for Ajay Yadav and Vikash Singh coming in for injured pacer Ashish Kumar.

Meanwhile, Gujarat called up veteran pacer RP Singh in place of Mehul Patel.

Jharkhand were boosted by the presence of India’s limited-overs captain MS Dhoni who came to watch the match.