Suryakumar ton and Mumbai total leave Rest gasping

MUMBAI: Mumbai piled on a mammoth 603 runs in the first innings to leave the Rest of India side gasping on the second day of their Irani Cup encounter at the Brabourne Stadium on Monday.

In return, ROI had managed 36 runs at the end of day’s play while losing Srikar Bharat’s wicket for 16 runs.

Suryakumar Yadav, batting on 88 on Sunday, went on to score 156 before scooping a Jayant Yadav delivery to the bowler. In fact, Mumbai’s top-six batsmen all returned with scores of over 50 runs — an Irani Cup record. Skipper Aditya Tare (65) and Siddhesh Lad (66) also got half centuries to add to the knocks of Yadav, Akhil Herwadkar (90), Jay Bista (104) and Shreyas Iyer (55).

Yadav, who was known for his attacking batting only a few seasons ago, has focused on playing the anchoring role this season while players like Iyer and Bista have gone after the bowlers. His mature approach has led to good results, with Yadav scoring five half centuries and three tons in the Ranji Trophy this season — 115 vs Madhya Pradesh in the semis, 104 vs Gujarat and 100 vs Baroda in the group stages. However, Yadav rated the knock against ROI as his best of the season.

“This is my best knock of the season, considering I took the team to a comfortable position in the Irani Cup, which we haven’t won in such a long time.

There was no pressure on me to perform when I went out to bat, but there was some responsibility on my shoulders. After Shreyas Iyer’s dismissal, I thought that someone should drop the anchor and stay on the crease,” Yadav said at the end of day’s play.

Yadav added that his team’s approach of slowing down the run rate was part of their plan.

Mumbai’s strategy meant ROI’s bowlers toiled with little returns for the majority of the day. They were hampered, in part, by the injury to pacer Ankit Rajpoot, who hurt his left knee while fielding on Sunday and was consequently unable to bowl at all on Monday.

Off sp inner Jay ant Ya dav, picked over Shahbaz Nadeem and Akshay Wakhare, claimed four wickets for 132 runs. But by the time he scalped those wickets the damage was already done as Mumbai had scored 512 runs before Yadav fell.

ROI’s Krishna Das, who ended the 2015-16 Ranji Trophy season as the second-highest wicket-taker with 50 wickets from 19 innings for Assam, gave away 152 runs in his 40 overs for just two wickets. Saurashtra’s Jaydev Unadkat went for 128 off 28 overs and Stuart Binny claimed one wicket.