On the first day of the group A Ranji Trophy match between Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, which took place in Rohtak on Tuesday, Himachal Pradesh bowlers made excellent use of the early morning dew as they bowled Haryana out for a score of only 46. Then, on the second day of the match, Himachal Pradesh’s batters made excellent use of the eased-out conditions to take control of the game.
Prashant Chopra’s century (137) and his 219-run opening stand with Raghav Dhawan propelled the hosts to a score of 246 for 1 when play was stopped for the day (86 batting). With three days of play still remaining, it appears as though Himachal Pradesh will have the best chance to win the match in its whole.
The decision made by Haryana captain Himanshu Rana to bat first on a December morning at the always seamer-friendly Chaudhary Bansi Lal Stadium track in Lahli ended up being a disastrous one. KKR seamer Vaibhav Arora (4/15), right-arm medium pacer Sidharth Sharma (3/12), and rookie Kanwr Abhinay (2/1) shared the majority of the wickets that were taken. Haryana was bowled out for a total Rishi Dhawan, the most experienced player on the team, took a wicket as well.
Because Arora took wickets at the top of the order in the third, fifth, and seventh overs of the Haryana innings, the team’s batting total was only able to last for 20.4 overs.
After that point, there was no turning back since the moisture that was deeper down did play a role, and the constant pressure did the remainder of the work.
With the exception of Nishant Sindhu (19), who is the star of India’s U-19 World Cup team, none of the other 10 batters were able to achieve double digits in their score.
When Chopra and Dhawan walked out to bat, the wicket had already become easier, so they were able to get the most out of the shots they played.
Between the two of them, left-armer Sindhu (who had a bowling average of 0.51) and veteran Jayant Yadav (who had a batting average of 0.47) handed up nearly 100 runs (98) in the 20 overs that were bowled by spinners.
While Dhawan had 11 knocks to the boundary and one maximum, Chopra smashed 16 fours and four sixes during their innings.
On the other hand, Railways leg-spinner Karn Sharma took eight wickets during a fantastic bowling display; nonetheless, Vidarbha was still able to score 213 on the first day of their Ranji Trophy Group D match in Nagpur thanks to captain Faiz Fazal’s century. The match took place at Nagpur.
Vidarbha’s captain Fazal scored 112 runs off 219 balls, but his team was losing wickets left and right while he was batting. Sharma took seven of those wickets with his bowling (8/38). He was the ninth Vidarbha hitter to be dismissed overall, and he was the one who fell to Sharma in the end.
During his innings, Fazal smashed 12 fours to score runs. The 35-year-old former India bowler mowed through the opposition batting line-up, with just Atharva Taide (43) and Sanjay Raghunath (18) able to reach double-digit figures among the other Vidarbha batters.
At the end of their reply, Railways had reached 22 for 1 after 6.1 overs.
As Punjab hitters toyed with Chandigarh spinners to register 363 for 3 on the first day of their Ranji Trophy Group D encounter here on Tuesday, opener Prabhsimran Singh Singh struck a double hundred during another Group D match that was played in Mohali.
Chandigarh’s plan to bowl first against Punjab failed as Prabhsimran (202) and Abhishek Sharma (who also struck a century) put on 250 runs for the opening wicket in 57.4 overs. This severely demoralised the Chandigarh bowlers and allowed Punjab to take control of the game.
Gurinder Singh took the wicket of Abhishek for Chandigarh towards the close of the second session. Abhishek scored exactly 100 runs off 146 balls with the assistance of 11 fours and two sixes. This was the first time that Chandigarh was able to break the opening stand.
Sandeep Sharma took the catch of Prabhsimran, which was bowled by Rohit Dhanda (2/50), who also removed Naman Dhir from the game. Prabhsimran was the final man out for the day (34). During his innings, which consisted of 278 balls and lasted practically the entirety of the day, Prabh smashed 28 fours and two sixes.
At the end of the innings, the captain, Mandeep Singh, and Anmolpreet Singh were batting with respective scores of 16 and 5.
On the first day of the match against Tripura in Agartala, the Gujarat captain Priyank Panchal made 111 runs as his team scored 271 runs before being bowled out in 75.3 overs.