RANJI Shaw’s ton puts Mumbai in commanding position
Mumbai, Oct. 24: Young opener Prithvi Shaw underlined his class with a century against a quality Tamil Nadu attack to lead Mumbai to 314/7 on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Group C match here. Electing to bat after winning the toss, Mumbai suffered an early setback when comeback man V. Yo Mahesh got Akhil Herwadkar in his first over.
The opener was trapped leg-before for a duck. Shaw and Shreyas Iyer, who has been picked in the India T20 team to face New Zealand, were in an aggressive frame of mind and attacked the Tamil Nadu bowlers.
In a quick start despite the loss of Herwadkar, the 50 came in the eighth over. They raised the team’s 100 in the 20th over as Iyer rattled along striking some beautiful shots in the process. He raised his halfcentury at run-a-ball.
Shaw appeared subdued but played some splendid shots too as the Tamil Nadu bowlers struggled to contain the free-stroking Mumbai batsmen.
Iyer fell at 106 after a fluent knock of 57 which included seven fours and two sixers. He edged a delivery from Vijay Shankar to ‘keeper N. Jagadeesan.
The Mumbai batsmen continued to look for runs and Surya Kumar Yadav added 63 runs with Shaw in just over 11 overs to keep the momentum.
Shaw, who was 76 at the lunch break, only required another 26 balls to reach his century and continued to push the Mumbai score along.
The young right-hander hit 17 fours and two sixes before falling for 123 to R. Ashwin. The country’s premier off-spinner had previously got rid of the aggressive Siddesh Lad.
Mumbai skipper Aditya Tare scored an important half-century to further the team’s cause and added 63 runs with the experienced Abhishek Nayar, before Vijay Shankar provided TN the much-needed breakthrough. GROUP A At Guwahati: Assam 216/8 in 85 overs (Rishav Das 32, Tarjinder Singh 43, Pritam Das 37*, Deepak Bansal 3/50, Amit Mishra 3/56) vs Railways. At Lucknow: Maharashtra 274/4 in 90 overs (Ruturaj Gaikwad 63, Ankit Bawane 107*, R. Motwani 62*, Saurabh Kumar 3/100) vs Uttar Pradesh. At Shimoga: Karnataka 183 in 62.2 overs (Stuart Binny 61, Md Siraj 4/42, Ravi Kiran 3/36) vs Hyderabad 51/3 in 22 overs (K. Sumanth 34*, K. Gowtham 2/22).
GROUP B At Ranchi: Haryana 208 in 75.4 overs (Ck Bishnoi 61*, SG Rohila 52, Sunny Gupta 4/67, Jaskaran 3/52) vs Jharkhand 14 for no loss im 14 overs. At Surat: J&K 261 in 77.2 overs (Ahmad Banday 54, Shubam Khajuria 54, Bandeep Singh 33*, Mohammed Mudhashir 35, Piyush Chawla 5/92, H. Patel 3/57) vs Gujarat 15 for no loss in 10 overs. At Trivandrum: Kerala 232/3 in 90 overs (Jalaj Saxena 79, Rohan Prem 86, Sachin Baby 38*) vs Rajasthan.
GROUP C At Agartala: Tripura 88/6 in 40 overs (B. Ghosh 42*, Ishwar Pandey 3/20) vs Madhya Pradesh. At Vizag: Andhra 278/2 in 89.5 overs (D.B. Prashanth Kumar 127, Hanuma Vihari 143*) vs Odisha. At Mumbai: Mumbai 314/7 in 89.1 overs (Prithvi Shaw 123, Shreyas Iyer 57, Aditya Tare 53, Vijay Shankar 3/37) vs Tamil Nadu.
GROUP D At Porvorim: Punjab 396/2 in 90 overs (Jiwanjot Singh 215*, Anmolpreet Singh 103*) vs Goa. At New Delhi: Himachal 273/5 in 90 overs (Prashanth Chopra 55, NR Gangta 89*, AK Bains 68, VU Yadav 3/79) vs Services. At Nagpur: Chhattisgarh 246/3 in 89.2 overs (Ashutosh Singh 113, AN Khare 116*, Umesh Yadav 3/44) vs Vidarbha.