Ranji Trophy: Prithvi Shaw smashes triple ton against Assam

Mumbai’s Prithvi Shaw scored a triple hundred against Assam in the Ranji Trophy on Wednesday in Guwahati.

The 23-year-old continued from his unbeaten 240 from overnight and brought up his triple ton. This was Shaw’s maiden triple hundred in First-Class cricket.

Batting with captain Ajinkya Rahane, Shaw led the Mumbai team to a mammoth first innings score which neared 500.

Shaw had a lean run in the tournament before the Assam game, with just 160 runs from the previous seven innings for Mumbai.

Prashant scores century as Himachal take first-innings lead

Nadaun: Prashant Chopra completed his 12th first-class century as the Himachal Pradesh opener helped the hosts take the first-innings lead in their Ranji Trophy Group A match against Odisha on Wednesday.

The dependable opener's 198-ball 138 was the highlight of the day as Himachal quickly got on with the task of erasing the opponents' first-innings lead.

Beginning the day at 91/2 in reply to Odisha's first-innings total of 191, Himachal had only Prashant to thank for guiding them to a modest 258 even as the visitors' seam bowler Sunil Roul wreaked havoc.

The 24-year-old Roul troubled the hosts with his nagging line and length.

But Prashant, starting from where he had left off on Tuesday at 61, kept accumulating runs and punished any loose deliveries by dispatching them for boundaries. The opener ended up with 18 fours and a six with a healthy strike rate of almost 70 to boot.

The seasoned batter, in the process, completed his 4,000 first-class runs even as Roul continued to chip away, returning figures of 6/62.

Prashant finally fell victim to a Roul delivery, trapped in front of the wicket. His dismissal opened the floodgates as none of the Himachal batters could play the wily bowler with confidence.

Himachal wicketkeeper-batter Praveen Thakur and Mayank Dagar departed without opening their account, while tailenders Vaibhav Arora and Kanwar Abhinay too fell cheaply. Soon, the hosts' batting wound up at 258 in 76.5 overs.

At stumps on day two, Odisha were 29 without loss in 13 overs with Anurag Sarangi and Shantanu Mishra unbeaten on 14 and 15 respectively.

Brief scores:

At Nadaun: Odisha 191 and 29 for no loss in 13 overs vs Himachal Pradesh 258 in 76.5 overs (Prashant Chopra 138, Amit Kumar 46; Sunil Roul 6/62).

At Kalyani: Baroda 269 in 100.1 overs (Jyotsnil Singh 85, Priyanshu Moliya 50, Mahesh Pithiya 52; Mukesh Kumar 3/56, Akash Deep 4/71) vs Bengal 189 for 9 in 59 overs (Anustup Majumdar 90; Soyeb Sopariya 3/43, Sahejadkhan Pathan 4/46).

At Rohtak: Nagaland 88 in 42.1 overs (Shrikant Mundhe 32; Amit Rana 5/15) vs Haryana 56 for 2 in 14.5 overs (Yuvraj Singh batting 38).

At Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh 107 for 6 in 52 overs (Dhruv Jurel 29, Sameer Choudhary batting 28; Agrim Tiwari 2/17) vs Uttarakhand.

Andhra batters make merry as Delhi bowlers struggle

New Delhi: Andhra wicketkeeper-batter Srikar Bharat, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shoaib Mohd Khan scored half-centuries as the visitors made merry against a depleted Delhi bowling, declaring their innings at 459 for nine in the Ranji Trophy Group B tie here on Wednesday.

At stumps on day two, Delhi were 19 for one, having lost their opener Ayush Badoni for duck at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.

With Andhra batters displaying tremendous staying power despite the early morning biting cold, Delhi bowlers could not warm up to the challenge and allowed the visitors to settle down.

If Srikar Bharat and Nitish Reddy were cautious in their approach, Shoaib Khan provided the final flourish, coming up with a breezy run-a-ball 78 and helping Andhra reach the imposing total.

Andhra skipper Hanuma Vihari, who had painstakingly scored 76 on day one, could add just nine runs to his overnight score before he was trapped lbw by Delhi quick Harshit Rana.

But success was a costly commodity for Delhi as Bharat and Nitish stitched together a 68-run stand to take the total past 300. And by the tile the latter departed, Andhra were well and truly on way to an imposing total.

Shoaib Khan, playing his 18th first-class game, slammed his third half-century in double-quick time to take the total past 450.

The 31-year-old's dismissal brought about Andhra's declaration and, with it, gave Delhi batters another opportunity to redeem themselves after a tough first four rounds of the Ranji season.

However, nothing seemed to be going right for the hosts as they lost Ayush Badoni for a golden duck, with the opener trapped leg before by Nitish Reddy.

Dhruv Shorey and Hritik Shokeen were at the crease on 9 and 10 runs respectively at stumps.

At Mumbai, Prithvi Shaw again gave a glimpse of his batting prowess, scoring a career-best 379 to guide the hosts to a mammoth 687 for four declared. Skipper Ajinkya Rahane's embellishing 191-run knock added to Assam's misery, who started confidently, losing just one wicket on way to scoring 129 on day two.

The enormity of the task for Assam can be gauged from the fact that they have to score another 558 runs in order to take the first-innings lead.

Shaw, unbeaten at 240 on Tuesday, continued to punish the Assam bowlers but fell just 21 runs short of the 400-run milestone, trapped in front by Riyan Parag. However, the declaration came much later when Rahane departed, caught by Assam skipper Gokul Sharma off Parag.

Brief scores: Andhra 459 for 9 decl in 133.2 overs (CR Gnaneshwar 81, Hanuma Vihari 85, Srikar Bharat 80, Nitish Kumar Reddy 66, Shoaib Md Khan 78; Hrithik Shokeen 4/114) vs Delhi 19/1 in 9 overs.

At Mumbai: Mumbai 687 for four declared in 138.4 overs (Prithvi Shaw 379, Ajinkya Rahane 191) vs Assam 129 for one in 39 overs (Subham Mandal 40, Rahul Hazarika batting 60).

At Hyderabad: Hyderabad 79 and 191 in 46.4 overs (Tholkanti Goud 58, Chandan Sahani 49; Jaydev Unadkat 3/62, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 4/34) lost to Saurashtra 327 in 68.3 overs (Harvik Desai 81, Chirag Jani 68, Sheldon Jackson 59, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 40; Anikethreddy 7/95) by 57 runs.

At Pune: Maharashtra 446 in 98 overs (Ruturaj Gaikwad 195, Kedar Jadhav 56, Azim Kazi 88; Sandeep Warrier 3/105) vs Tamil Nadu 267 for four in 65 overs (Baba Indrajith 47, Pradosh Ranjan Paul batting 74, Vijay Shankar batting 41).

Gopal puts Karnataka in strong position against Rajasthan

Alur (Karnataka): Shreyas Gopal scored a gritty 95 to put Karnataka in a strong position on day two of their Ranji Trophy match against Rajasthan here on Wednesday.

Resuming the day at 106/2, Gopal and Manish Pandey (75 batting) steered the home to 380 for eight, extending their lead to 251 runs.

On day one, Rajasthan were bundled out for 129.

All-rounder Gopal collected 13 fours in his 165-ball knock while Pandey, who retired hurt after getting hit on his fingers, remained unbeaten at close of play. Srinivas Sharath pitched in with 42 off 120 balls.

Aniket Choudhary was the standout bowler with four wickets while Manav Suthar took three.

Brief scores:

At Alur: Rajasthan 129 in 45.3 overs vs Karnataka 380/8 in 118  overs (Mayank Agarwal 52, Shreyas Goptal 95, Manish Pandey batting 75; Anikety Choudhary 4/81).

At Thumba: Kerala 327 in 121 overs (Sachin Baby 159, Salman Nizar 42, Sijoman 55; Diwesh Pathania 2/42) vs Services 167/6 in 53 overs (Ravi Chauhan 50; Vaisakh Chandran 2/30).

At Jamshedpur: Jharkhand 103 in 32.1 overs and 258/3 in 78 overs (Aryamen Sen 85; Ravi Kiran 1/31) vs Chhattisgarh 113 in 50 overs (Avnish DHaliwal 50).

Gujarat skipper Panchal shines after Gaja's 6/49 against MP

Indore: Skipper Priyank Panchal remained not out on 71 after seamer Chintan Gaja's excellent 6/49 helped Gujarat cut short reigning champions Madhya Pradesh's first innings at 312 in their Ranji Trophy Group D match here on Wednesday.

Gujarat were 159 for four at stumps on the second day, with Manan Hingrajia giving Panchal company on 43 at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.

Resuming their innings at a solid 232 for three with overnight centurion Himanshu Mantri going strong on 115, Gujarat suffered the day's first blow for the addition of just seven runs, as Gaja trapped rival skipper Aditya Shrivastava (15) in front of the wicket.

The next man in the middle, Harsh Gawli (19) too perished after getting a start, with Gaja being the successful bowler again.

Gaja was on a hat-trick when he had Saransh Jain caught by Saurav Chauhan for a first-ball duck, leaving MP in a spot of bother at 281 for six, a far cry from the position they were in when they ended the proceedings on the opening day.

The lower-order batters failed to make worthwhile contributions, leading to the conclusion of MP's first innings even as Mantri waged a lone battle to make 159 off 349 balls.

Mantri's innings was studded with 20 boundaries and a four. This was Mantri's, who also doubles up as the team's wicketkeeper, second century in first-class cricket.

Medium pacer Shen Patel was the second most successful bowler for Gujarat, returning figures of 3/89 in 22.4 overs.

Gujarat trailed MP by 153 runs at the close of play.

Brief scores:

At Indore: Madhya Pradesh 312 all out 115.4 overs (Himanshu Mantri 159, Shubham Sharma 72; Chintan Gaja 6/49) vs Gujarat 159/4 in 55 overs (Priyank Panchal 71 batting, Manan Hingrajia 43 batting).

At Mohali: Jammu and Kashmir 176/6 in 44 overs (Abdul Samad 46, Vivrant Sharma 41, Fazil Rashid batting 46; Siddarth Kaul 3/58) vs Punjab.

At Chandigarh: Vidarbha 11/0 in 4 overs vs Chandigarh.

At Surat: Tripura 96 and 70/1 in 14 overs (Bishal Ghosh 42) vs Railways 337 all out in 109.1 overs (Shivam Chaudhary 70, Pratham Singh 79, Yuvraj Singh 74; Deepak Khatri 4/46).