Baltej, Sandeep rock Vidarbha

Nagpur, December 25

Punjab pacers Baltej Singh and Sandeep Sharma gave defending champions Vidarbha a scare on the

first day of their Ranji Trophy Group A encounter. The two struck early to leave the hosts in deep trouble at 72/5, before a fine partnership of 94 between Ganesh Satish (88 not out) and Akshay Wakhare (34) helped the hosts to a position of relative safety.

When play was called off early due to bad light, Vidarbha had reached 196/6 in 67 overs.

Baltej started the good work when he took a catch off his own bowling to send back Akshay Kolhar for a duck in the second over. Baltej struck again soon after when he broke through Wasim Jaffer’s defence to bowl him out, leaving the hosts reeling at 12/2. Skipper Faiz Fazal and Satish then added 49 for the third wicket, playing cautiously as they took over 17 overs for their partnership. It ended when Fazal was caught by Punjab skipper Mandeep Singh off Sandeep, after making 34 off 70 balls.

The captain’s wicket led to a collapse as Vidarbha lost Mohit Kale (1) and Akshay Wadkar too with the addition of only 11 more runs.

However, Satish and Wakhare put up a fight, adding 94 runs in 30.5 overs to rescue their team.

Abhinay rattles Karnataka

Mysuru: Fresh off a win over Tamil Nadu in their previous match, Himachal Pradesh bowled out Karnataka for 166 in their Group B match, with new-ball bowler Kanwar Abhinay Singh picking up 5/37 and Rishi Dhawan taking 3/27.

Karnataka had a terrible start when Abhinay had Test star Mayank Agarwal caught by wicketkeeper Ankush Bains off the first ball of the match. Abhinay then removed Devdutt Padikkal (0) and Ravikumar Samarth (4) and the hosts were in deep trouble at 10/3. Then Dhawan too got into the act, taking out opener Dega Nischal in the 16th over to make it 30/4 for Karnataka.

Even as captain Karun Nair stood firm, making 81 off 185 balls, wickets kept falling around him and only two of his teammates scored over 20 runs. Nair was the ninth man to fall, caught by Priyanshu Khanduri off Dhawan, after dragging his team to 166. However, Himachal too had a bad start and were reduced to 29/3 at stumps.

Haryana 274/6 vs Jharkhand

Jamshedpur: Haryana reached 274/6 at close of play against hosts Jharkhand in their Group C match. At stumps, Chaitanya Bishnoi was batting on 75 and giving him company was captain Harshal Patel, who had made 44 off 90 balls.

Apart from Bishnoi and Patel, Ankit Kumar (53) and Shivam Chauhan (53) too got starts but failed to build a big innings.

Paceman Ashish Kumar, left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem and the second left-arm spinner Anukul Roy picked up two wickets each for Jharkhand.

Bad light hits J&K match

Jammu: Only 18 overs of play was possible as bad light forced an early close on the first day of the Group C match between Jammu and Kashmir and Assam.

The home team were 59/1 in the 18 overs of play that was possible. Suryansh Raina was batting on 15 and Shubham Khajuria had made 10 when play was called off. Ahmed Banday was the only wicket to fall, removed lbw by Arup Das for 31 off 48 balls.

Brief Scores

Vidarbha: 196/6 (Ganesh Satish 88*; Baltej Singh 3/32, Sandeep Sharma 2/72) vs Punjab

Karnataka: 166 all out in 67.2 overs (Karun Nair 81, Kanwar Abhinay 5/37, Rishi Dhawan 3/27); Himachal Pradesh: 29/3 (P Khanduri 14*; Pratik Jain 2/11)

Haryana: 274/6 (Chaitanya Bishnoi 75*, Harshal Patel 44*, Ankit Kumar 53, Shivam Chauhan 53; Ashish Kumar 2/33, Shahbaz Nadeem 2/64, Anukul Roy 2/55) vs Jharkhand

Jammu & Kashmir: 59/1 (Ahmed Banday 31)