Lad the saving grace for hosts in Irani Cup

MUMBAI: Siddhesh Lad was Mumbai’s saving grace with a fighting knock of 60 runs as the 41-time Ranji champions suffered an uncharacteristic batting collapse in the second innings of their Irani Cup encounter against Rest of India at the Brabourne Stadium on Wednesday.

Mumbai, having taken a first innings lead of 297 runs, could manage only 182 in the second with Akhil Herwadkar (1), Aditya Tare (6), Shreyas Iyer (0) and Abhishek Nayar (5) all falling cheaply. At the end of day’s play, ROI were 100 for the loss of a wicket, needing to score 380 runs on Thursday for victory.

ROI’s bowlers had been made to slog for almost the entire first two days of the match, but, on Wednesday, Jayant Yadav (4-93) and Jaydev Unadkat (3-16) were particularly lethal.

At one point, Mumbai were reeling at 62-4. But a 54-run partnership between Lad and Suryakumar Yadav pushed them to a respectable total.

The 23-year-old Lad has now achieved 50-plus scores in the Ranji Trophy semifinal (60 vs Madhya Pradesh), final (88 vs Saurashtra) and in both innings of the Irani Cup (66 and 60). While Lad has six 50-plus scores in the Ranji Trophy and Irani Cup, only once has he gone one to convert it into a ton.

“I will try and work on it (converting my 50s into big scores). I will speak with senior players and coaches about this,” Lad told reporters at the end of day’s play before pointing out: “I am not thinking about it (getting to triple figures when I come out to bat). I could have done better but still I am happy with them. I usually bat with tail-enders.”

BRIEF SCORES: Mumbai 603 & 182 (S Yadav 49, S Lad 60; J Yadav 4/93, J Unadkat 3/16, S Binny 2/41). ROI 306 & 100 for 1 (KS Bharat 42, F Fazal 41 batting, S Chatterjee 17 batting)