RANJI VIJAY SLAMS CENTURY AS TN TAKE CONTROL

Cuttack, Nov. 9: Opener Murali Vijay warmed upin style for the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka by scoring a century to help Tamil Nadu reach 292/3 against Odisha on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Group C match here on Thursday.

Electing to bat, the visitors lost skipper Abhinav Mukund (12), who was runout following a mix-up with Vijay. However, the Test opener was involved in two century partnerships, first with wicket-keeper N Jagadeesan (88) and B Indrajith (41 batting), which put Tamil Nadu in the driver’s seat.

After a cautious start, Vijay came into his own, playing a series of beautiful shots and reached his hundred in a hurry from the mid-80s with a huge six.

It was Jagadeesan, pushed up the order in place of a struggling no.3 M. Kaushik Gandhi who was dropped, who set the tone, with some enterprising play. He didn’t miss out on an opportunity to score and crunched some boundaries while Vijay played himself in. The partnership between Vijay and Jagadeesan yielded 145 runs before the latter fell to Odisha captain Govind GROUP A At Guwahati: Uttar Pradesh 349 in 73.2 overs (Saurabh Kumar 133, Upendra Yadav 127, Rajjakuddin Ahmed 3/103) vs Assam 25/0 in seven overs. At Bengaluru: Karnataka 348/4 in 90 overs (Agarwal 169*, Pandey 74, Samarth 58) vs Delhi. At Pune: Maharashtra 249/5 in 90 overs (Bawne 92, Motwani 52, Shaikh 37, Tripathi 29, Gaikwad 25) vs Railways.

GROUP B At Rohtak: Haryana 99/7 in 44 overs (Paliwal 32, Shivam 28, Pankaj 3/25) vs Rajasthan. At Jamshedpur: Jammu & Kashmir: 357/6 in 90 overs (Khajuria 101, Bisht 101*, Shah 79*, Bandy 26, Bandeep 26) vs Jharkhand. At Rajkot: Saurashtra 311/1 in 90 overs (Patel 156*, Pujara 115*, Uthappa 30) vs Gujarat.

Poddar, 12 short of a ton.

Vijay took over after Jagadeesan’s exit and dominated a 118-run stand with Indrajith. A streak of aggression took him to a century from the 80s. GROUP C At Mumbai: Mumbai 171 (Tare 50, Shreyas 28, Sheth 5/50, Meriwala 5/52) vs Baroda 63/1 in 26 overs (Solanki 32*). At Cuttack: Tamil Nadu 292/3 in 90 overs (Vijay 140, Jagadeesan 88, Indrajith 41*) vs Odisha. At Agartala: Andhra 252/2 in 90 overs (Prasanth 120*, Vihari 62, Bhui 49*).

GROUP D At Kalyani: Vidarbha 285/1 in 83 overs (Fazal 142, Sanjay 117*) vs Bengal. At Dharamsala: Himachal Pradesh 175 in 44.2 overs (Dhawan 35, Gangta 26, Jaiswal 25, Pankaj 3/52) vs Chhattisgarh 91/1 in 34 overs (Rishab 46*, Ashutosh 40*). At Delhi: Services 228/8 in 90 overs (Verma 64, Yadav 61, Tanwar 43, Navneet 27, Parab 3/35) vs Goa.

In Bengaluru, Karnatka posted 348/4 on Day One of their Group A match against Delhi with Mayank Agarwal scoring an unbeaten 169 and Manish Pandey hitting 74.