Ranji Trophy roundup: Ravindra Jadeja slams ton to put Saurashtra on top; Tripura fight back against Tamil Nadu

Following is a summary of all the action that took place on Day 1 of the second round of Ranji Trophy. Rana, Rawat take Delhi to 318/6 Young guns Nitish Rana (89) and Anuj Rawat (74) continued their good form as Delhi reached 318 for six against Railways at stumps on day one of the Ranji Trophy group A encounter at New Delhi on Saturday. All rounder Mannan Sharma (68 batting) also got his second fifty in as many matches. Rana and Rawat carried on from where they had left off against Assam in the opening encounter after Delhi’s top three Gautam Gambhir (2), Unmukt Chand (11) and Dhruv Shorey (16) were out cheaply with scoreboard reading 44. Nitish, who faced 145 balls, hit 12 boundaries as he peppered the off-side field once again with cut shots, with some flowing drives to the on-side to go with it. Along with debutant Himmat Singh (45), Nitish added 109 runs for the fourth wicket. Himmat, in fact, came down the track to hit off-spinner Avinash Yadav towards the second tier of the dressing room for a big six. However, Himmat missed a chance to score a half-century on debut when he was caught behind trying to cut Avinash. After his impressive debut, Rawat looked more assured alongside Rana, playing both cuts and drives on the off-side. As Nitish was looking good for his second hundred, he came down the track to a flighted delivery from Shivakant Shukla to be stumped 11 short of three-figure mark. Just like the last match, left-handers Rawat and Mannan batted with ease. The low bounce of the pitch and slowness made it easy to adjust. Rawat again showed good temperament as he faced 152 balls before Anureet Singh (3/71) got him at the fag end of the day. Brief Scores — Group A: Delhi 318/6 (Nitish Rana 89, Anuj Rawat 74, Mannan Sharma 68 not out, Anureet Singh 3/71) vs Railways. Assam 144 in 59.1 overs (Gokul Sharma 55; Shreyas Gopal 3/43) vs Karnataka 77/0 in 30 overs (Ravikumar Samarth 47 batting , Mayank Agarwal 26 not out). Hyderabad versus Uttar Pradesh. No play on day one.   Ignored Jadeja scores unbeaten 150 Ravindra Jadeja, who was ignored for the limited-overs series against New Zealand, made a statement with an unbeaten 150 for Saurashtra on the first day of their Group B match against Jammu and Kashmir in the Ranji Trophy in Rajkot on Saturday. Jadeja, who has not played for India since the Test series in Sri Lanka two months ago, struck his eighth first-class hundred to take Saurashtra to 428 for four at stumps. Jadeja shared a mammoth 281-run stand for the fourth wicket with Sheldon Jackson, who smashed 181 off 156 balls. His blazing innings comprised 22 fours and seven sixes. Jadeja, on the other hand, hit 18 boundaries and two sixes during his unbeaten effort. The southpaw did not play in Saurashtra’s Ranji Trophy opener against Haryana at Rohtak. Jadeja did not play the ODI series in Sri Lanka before being ignored for 50-over and T20 series against Australia. Test specialist and Saurashtra captain Cheteshwar Pujara was out for 13 on Saturday while new recruit Robin Uthappa was dismissed for 37 in only his second innings for the team. Saurashtra was in a spot of bother at 59 for three before Jackson and Jadeja put their team in a commanding position. Brief scores — Group B: Saurashtra 428/4 in 90 overs (Jackson 181, Jadeja 150 not out) vs Jammu and Kashmir. Rajasthan 250/4 in 90 overs (Amitkumar Gautam 103 batting) vs Jharkhand. Kerala 208 all out in 20 overs (Sanju Samson 51; Piyush Chawla 5/69) vs Gujarat 60/2. Smit Patel, Yashpal take Tripura to 244 for 7 vs TN Smit Patel (99) and Yashpal Singh (96) missed out on centuries, but helped Tripura recover from 41 for 3 to reach 244 for 7 at stumps on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Group “C” match against Tamil Nadu in Chennai on Saturday. Sent into bat by the home side, Tripura were dealt an early blow when Bishal Singh nicked the very first ball from K Vignesh to wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik. Udiyan Bose, who made a century in the rain-affected opening game against Odisha, fell to L Vignesh for 2 to leave the team at 18 for 2. RD Banik and Patel added 23 runs before the former was bowled by Rahil Shah for 17. This brought together the experienced Yashpal Singh and Patel, the ‘professionals’ in the side. The duo gained in confidence gradually and defied the Tamil Nadu attack which included Test all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin. Patel, who was part of the India team that won the Under-19 World Cup in 2012, and Singh played several attractive strokes in their 162-run partnership. The 24-year-old Patel fell while going for a big hit off Washington Sundar’s bowling, and was caught rather agilely by J Kousik one short of a well-deserved ton. Abhijit Dey fell five runs later, trapped leg-before by Sundar for a duck. Yashpal provided Ashwin his first wicket of the innings when he edged a catch to Karthik for 96. Gurinder Singh fell in the 88th over as Tamil Nadu hit back towards the end of play after a tough second session. For the hosts, K Vignesh and Sundar picked up two wickets each while Ashwin, L Vignesh and Shah got one scalp each. Earlier, Tamil Nadu made three changes to the side that played Andhra Pradesh in the first game, bringing in Karthik, Kousik and handing a debut to left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore in place of Murali Vijay, B Aparajith and N Jagadeesan. Coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar told reporters at the end of the day that Vijay didn’t play the game owing to a neck spasm and a decision to leave him out was taken in the morning. Further, he said Vijay was expected to be ready for the next game. He said team had not maintained pressure after striking early blows, but gave credit to the Tripura batsmen. “It is about maintaining the pressure. It is something we need to look into. It has happened for the second time. Maybe we are losing momentum during the break. Somehow, the focus seems to drift. Have to give credit to the (Tripura) batsmen, they played well,” he said. “They played well. The two players who got runs are players who have been around for a while. Also, the wicket is a good wicket, a good pitch to bat on. There are no surprises in the pitch,” Kanitkar said. The Tamil Nadu coach praised Sundar and said “he bowled really well.” Patel, on his part, said more than missing out on a century, he felt it would have been better if he had been batting till the end of the day. “The ball was there was to be hit. I don’t regret it (going for the shot and getting out). I think I played really well the whole day. It feels bad to get out and get out on 99. It happens. I will try harder in the next innings,” the Tripura right-hander said. Asked if they had prepared specifically for Ashwin, he said “personally speaking I didn’t give as much thought to the name (Ashwin). I just tried to play the ball on merit. Brief scores - Group C: Tripura 244 for 7 in 90 overs (Smit Patel 99, Yashpal Singh 96, K Vignesh 2 for 36, M S Washington Sundar 2 for 40) vs Tamil Nadu. Madhya Pradesh 250 for 5 in 89 overs (Naman Ojha 99 batting, Ankit Sharma 63 batting, Wasim Ahmed 40, Akash Parkar 2 for 48) vs Mumbai. Baroda 247 for 7 in 90 overs (Kedar Devdhar 93, Vishnu Solanki 60, Swapnil K Singh 30 not out, B Ayyappa 3 for 46) vs Andhra Pradesh. Ghosh scores ton, Raman 94 to take Bengal to 283/2 on Day 1 Opener Koushik Ghosh struck his maiden first-class hundred on his return to the side after three and half years as Bengal were comfortably placed at 283 for 2 against Chhattisgarh in a Group D Ranji Trophy encounter in Raipur on Saturday. Playing only his second game for Bengal, left-handed Ghosh scored 114 off 221 deliveries, adding 159 runs for the opening stand with another southpaw Abhishek Raman (94 off 177 balls). Ghosh also added 98 runs for the second wicket with Sudeep Chatterjee (58 not out), who once again looked in fine nick having scored hundred in the opening round encounter against Services. Chhattisgarh captain Mohammed Kaif used as many as eight bowlers but didn’t get much help from a placid Veer Narayan Singh Stadium wicket. Ghosh and Raman were both cautious but they managed to punish the loose deliveries, getting 11 and 13 boundaries respectively. Raman was unlucky to miss out on a maiden hundred as he was caught by Amandeep Khare off debutant Shubham Singh’s bowling. Ghosh, who came in place of Abhimanyu Easwaran — currently on India A duty — grabbed the opportunity with both hands as he hit some good drives and also used his feet well. He was unlucky to get run out during the final hour of play. Skipper Manoj Tiwary, playing his 100th first-class game, was unbeaten on 14 alongside Chatterjee, who has hit six boundaries in 87 balls so far. Brief scores — Group D: Bengal 283/2 (Koushik Ghosh 114, Abhishek Raman 94, Sudeep Chatterjee 58 batting) vs Chhattisgarh. Goa 255 (Shagun Kamat 36, Pankaj Jaiswal 4/59) vs Himachal Pradesh 2/0 Punjab 161 (Abhishek Gupta 89, Yuvraj Singh 20, Lalit Yadav 3/47, S Neral 3/48) vs Vidarbha 106/1 (Sanjay Ramaswamy 52).