Railways leg-spinner Karn Sharma grabbed six wickets, including a sensational three in 12 balls, but Mumbai rode on opener Akhil Herwadkar’s disciplined knock of 145 to take the first innings lead in
Railways leg-spinner Karn Sharma grabbed six wickets, including a sensational three in 12 balls, but Mumbai rode on opener Akhil Herwadkar’s disciplined knock of 145 to take the first innings lead in their Group B Ranji Trophy cricket match here on Monday.
Replying to Railways’ paltry first innings total of 217, Mumbai ended day two of the four-day tie at 330 for 9 for a lead of 113 on a Wankhede Stadium track offering appreciable turn to the slow bowlers, indicated by the 28-year-old Sharma’s impressive figures of 6 for 90.
At stumps, Nikhil Patil was unbeaten with a well-made 82 along with number 11 batsman Vishal Dabholkar (0) after left-handed Herwadkar had played the sheet-anchor’s role with aplomb in his 277-minute stay in which he hit 15 fours and 2 sixes.
Mumbai, in fact, started at 4/2 in the morning when Herwadkar and Shreyas Iyer (57 in 62 balls; 1x6, 8x4) flayed the attack to take the hosts to 131.
Sharma then produced a magical spell to dismiss Iyer, Mumbai captain Aditya Tare and Siddhesh Lad while off-spinner Arnab Nan-di accounted for Suryakumar Yadav to leave the home team gasping at 147/6.
In Guwahati, Assam rode on K.B. Arun Karthik’s patient 81 to take a vital eight-run first innings lead over Delhi but the Group A match is interestingly poised with the visitors reaching 101/4 in their second essay at stumps on the second day.
Resuming their first innings at the overnight score of 69/3 in reply to Delhi’s 149, Assam were bowled out for 157 in 64.1 overs.
Besides Arun Kar-thik, who scored his runs off 169 balls and hit eight boundaries and three sixes, no other Assam batsmen could make significant contributions.
Skipper Gokul Sharma (24) added just two runs to his overnight score before being castled by Pradeep Sangwan. SCORES Group A: Delhi 149 & 101/4 vs Assam 157 (K.B. Arun Karthick 81). Bengal 528/8 (Chatterjee 147, Easwaran 65, Mondal 58) vs Maharashtra. Odisha 529/6 dec (Natraj Behara 255*, Ranjit Singh 112) vs Haryana 38/0. Rajasthan 216 vs Vidarbha 202/6 (Sarvate 42*, Fazal 40). Group B: Railways 217 (Ghosh 67, Thakur 4/38) vs Mumbai 330/9 (Herwadkar 145, Shreyas Iyer 57, Karn Sharma 6/90). UP 348 (Shaukat 88, Umang Sharma 73, Raina 61, Malolan 3/51) vs TN 174/6 (Vijay Shankar 92, Praveen Kumar 3/42). Baroda 475 (Devdhar 186, Waghmode 96) vs Punjab 112/3 (Uday Kaul 47*). Gujarat 311 (Juneja 61, Rujul Bhatt 51) vs MP 187/7.
