Despite Raina’s flop-show UP seize control against Rlys
LUCKNOW: While captaining the India Red side in the season opener Duleep Trophy last month, Suresh Raina wasn’t happy the way red-clay pitch of the Ekana International cricket stadium here behaved, especially after losing the prestigious tie to Dinesh Karthik-led India Blue on the fourth-day itself.
Raina could make one and 45 in two innings of the final, whereas youngsters like Washington Sundar for India Red and Abhimanyu Eshwaran for India Blue had centuries on the same turf, showing terrific temperament to stay on in the middle.
Certainly, fortunes were expected to be changed for Raina thereafter, and Ranji Trophy remains the best suited platform for him to redeem the confidence, but it is not happening at least for now. Raina could make just six in the season opener Ranji game against Railways here on Saturday.
Even after hitting a boundary off Ashish Yadav, UP’s skipper Raina couldn’t read a quick one from left-arm orthodox bowler Avinash Yadav and was adjudged leg before on the second morning of the four-day Group A encounter here.
It didn’t make much of a difference as a crucial 70-run sixth wicket stand between Akshdeep Nath and Rinku Singh helped former champions and hosts UP take a slender, but important 68-run first innings lead. Nath smacked his second half-century in first class cricket as his 160-ball 75 contained 11 hits to the fence. Rinku made 42 in 58 balls with the help of eight boundaries. The day came to a dramatic end as lanky seamer Ankit Rajpoot struck on consecutive deliveries, before Praveen Kumar snapping the third one to leave Railways struggling at 27/3 in their second innings. Rajpoot first had Shivakant Shukla leg before on duck, and then shattered the middle stump of Nitin Bhille on the second ball. Kumar trapped other opener Saurabh Wakaskar (6) in the next over. Railways still need 41 runs to overpower the lead with seven wickets in hand.
Earlier, resuming at the overnight score of 9/0, hosts saw opener Himanshu Asnora being trapped on the last ball of the very first over. Raina and Umang Sharma (25, 44b, 5x4) followed the suit then, before fellow opener Shivam Chaudhary (44, 135b, 4x4, 2x6) being bowled by Anureet Singh at the stroke of lunch. UP were 115/4 then.
At the time when things looked tilting in Railways favour, both Akshdeep and Rinku played some fabulous cricket to keep the Railways bowlers at bay. Akshdeep, who had a century last season in as many as two matches, kept rotating the strike with Rinku, who too was attacking from the other end. Seamer Anureet Singh and Avinash Yadav shared six wickets between them, whereas Deepak Bansal had 2/35.
SCORECARD
Railways (1st innings): 182.
UP (1st innings): S Chaudhary b A Singh 44, H Asnora lbw D Bansal 7, U Sharma lbw A Yadav 25, S Raina lbw Avinash Yadav 6, A Nath c N Bhille b A Yadav 75, E Dwivedi b D Bansal 18, R Singh st M Rawat b S Shukla 42, P Kumar c A Ghosh b Avinash Yadav 9, Z Ansari lbw A Singh 8, K Tyagi lbw A Singh 8, A Rajpoot not out 0.
EXTRAS (NB1, B4, LB7) 12.
Total (all out; 85.5 overs) 250.
Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-66, 3-75, 4-115, 5-156, 6-226, 7-229, 8-244, 9-250, 10-250.
Bowling: A Singh 22-12-42-3, D Bansal 13-4-35-2, Ashish 16-2-61-1, V Kamath 7-1-15-0, A Yadav 25.5-3-86-3, S Shukla 2-2-0-1.
Railways (2nd innings): S Wakaskar lbw P Kumar 6, S Shukla lbw A Rajpoot 0, N Bhille b A Rajpoot 0, A Ghosh batting 9, V Kamath batting 7. Extras (nb1, b4) 5. Total (for 3 wkts; 14 overs) 27. Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-10, 3-10. Bowling: P Kumar 5-3-5-1, A Rajpoot 6-2-6-2, Z Ansari 2-1-6-0, H Asnora 1-0-6-0.