New Delhi:Â International cricketers Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwari struck form straightaway, scoring unbeaten centuries while promising Punjab batsman Mandeep Singh and Himachal Pradesh’s Paras Dogra also came up with big hundreds as the new Ranji Trophy season got under way Thursday.
Rohit Sharma, whose tour to England ended abruptly with a broken finger, was batting on 133 in a Mumbai first-innings score of 228 for five at stumps on the opening day against Railways at the Karnail Singh Stadium here. Promising Suryakumar Yadav was unlucky to miss his hundred by 12 runs.
Tiwary, returning to lead Bengal, was batting on 120 in Bengal’s first innings score of 261 for four against Gujarat. Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly, who has promised to play the entire season, made 34.
Mandeep was at his dashing best, 100 of his 158 coming off boundaries against Uttar Pradesh, while Karan Goel made 68. Rudra Pratap Singh, who gave Uttar Pradesh a quick breakthrough claiming two early wickets, returned with the day’s best figures, four for 60.
The other century-maker of the day in the Elite Division was K.B.Pawan of Karnataka who, too, remained unbeaten with 121. The dashing Manish Pandey cracked 58 off 67 balls.
Dogra’s unfinished 174 came against Tripura at Agartala as Himachal ended the day in their Plate Division match at 347 for two.
No ball was bowled in the match between Tamil Nadu and last year’s finalists Baroda as rain washed out play in Chennai while overnight rain delayed the start of Hyderabad’s game against Jharkhand.
ELITE DIVISION:
GROUP A:
Mohali: Punjab 329 for five in 91 overs (Sarul Kanwar 38, Karan Goel 68, Mandeep Singh batting 158, Mayank Sidhana 37, R.P.Singh 4 for 60) vs Uttar Pradesh.
Delhi: Mumbai 338 for five in 90 overs (Kaustubh Pawar 31, Wasim Jaffer 33, Rohit Sharma batting 133, Suryakumar Yadav 88, Iqbal Abdulla 25) vs Railways.
Cuttack: Saurashtra 305 for five in 90 overs (Bhushan Chauhan 83, Basant Mohanty 2 for 50) vs Orissa.
Udaipur: Karnataka 273 for three in 87.1 overs (K.B.Pawan 121 batting, Manish Pandey 58, Amit Verma batting 59) vs Rajasthan.
GROUP B:
Kolkata: Bengal 261 for four in 90 overs (Arindam Ghosh 29, Manoj Tiwari batting 120, Sourav Ganguly 34, Wriddhiman Saha batting 41, Priyank Panchal 2 for 22) vs Gujarat
Delhi: Haryana 256 for seven in 89 overs (Sunny Singh 51, Abhimanyu Khod 68, Sachin Rana 80, Pradeep Sangwan 3 for 54, Parvinder Awana 2 for 72) vs Delhi.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu vs Baroda, no play owing to rain.
PLATE DIVISION:
GROUP A:
Agartala: Himachal Pradesh 347 for two in 90 overs (Abhinav Bal 122, Paras Dogra batting 174) vs Tripura.
Palam: Andhra 206 for seven in 90 overs (Boddapati Sumanth 70, Ganga Pradeep 80, Suraj Yadav 2 for 42, Nishan Singh 3 for 50) vs Services.
Nagpur: Vidarbha 274 for four in 90 overs (Aniruddha Chore 28, Shiv Sundar das 30, Ravi Jangid 27, Salabh Shrivastava 84 batting, Hemang Badani 32, Ranjit Paradkar 47 batting, Padmanabhan Prasanth 2 for 35) vs Kerala.
GROUP B:
Hyderabad: Hyderabad 129 for one in 41 overs (Akshath Reddy 61, Dwaraka Ravi Teja 59 batting) vs Jharkhand.
Srinagar: Assam 297 for four in 90 overs (Dheeraj Jadhav 135 batting, Sibsankar Roy 26, Tarjinder Singh 44, Gokul Sharma 46 batting, Raman Datta 2 for 56) vs Jammu & Kashmir.
Porvorim (Goa): Maharashtra 286 for four in 90 overs (Sangram Atitkar 52, Nikhil Paradkar 67, Ankit Bawne 60 batting, Rohit Motwani 68 batting, Robin D’Souza 2 for 50) vs Goa.
IANS
