Ghosh, Patel tons put Tripura on top vs HP

Kalyani (Bengal), October 20 

Bishal Ghosh slammed a career-best 146 in a spectacular 230-run partnership with Smit Patel as Tripura piled misery on Himachal Pradesh in their Ranji Trophy Group B match here today.

At stumps on Day 1, Tripura were 305/2 with Patel unbeaten at 111, having completed his fourth first-class century.

HP captain Rishi Dhawan’s decision to bowl on a flat pitch backfired as their bowlers got little assistance.

Their solitary moment of joy came in the 15th over when Pankaj Jaiswal castled Udiyan Bose (40). Ghosh completed his second first-class century off 188 balls and went on to better his previous best score after tea. Dhawan used seven bowlers and it was in the penultimate over of the day that Ghosh lost his focus to be caught by Sumeet Verma off Mayank Dagar.

Khajuria misses ton after rallying J&K vs AP

Mumbai: Young opener Shubham Khajuria played a responsible innings of 90 and helped Jammu and Kashmir recover from a poor start on the opening day of their Group C match against Andhra Pradesh at the Brabourne Stadium here today. Khajuria held one end after his team, put in by Andhra captain Hanuma Vihari, lost two quick wickets for only 18 on a track with a tinge of green on it.

The 21-year-old opener struck two sixes and nine fours in his 238-ball vigil as he added 99 runs with Parvez Rasool (45 in 114 balls) for the fourth wicket.

Khajuria fell after tea and at stumps J&K were 205/6.

Khajuria, in his 20th first-class game, missed a second century when his defence was breached by left-arm spinner Bhargav Bhatt.

Bengal reach 332/5 against Punjab

Bilaspur: Opener Sayan Mondal slammed a century as Bengal amassed 332/5 on the opening day of their Group A clash against Punjab here today. Mondal’s 135-run knock was the highlight of a fine batting performance by Bengal during which Sudip Chatterjee (51), Agniv Pan (70) and skipper Manoj Tiwary (45) also made noteworthy contributions. — PTI

Ranji Trophy

• Bengal: 332/5 (Mondal 135, Pan 70; Sandeep 2/70) vs Punjab 
• Tripura: 305/2 (Bishal 146, Smit 111*; Jaiswal 1/34) vs Himachal
• J&K: 205/6 (Khajuria 90, Rasool 45; Siva 2/32) v Andhra
• Haryana: 178 all out in 54.1 overs (Rohit 45; Mandal 4/26); 
• Chattisgarh: 68/1 (Risabh 30; Harshal 1/22) [At Guwahati]
• Delhi: 90 all out in 35.5 overs (Sreenath 4/12, Gowtham 3/26, Mithun 2/29); Karnataka: 131/3 in 52 overs (Mayank 56, Samarth 53) [At Kolkata]