Hyderabad: Delhi’s hopes of taking the first-innings lead looked slim with Hyderabad reducing the visitors to 245 for six in an Elite Group B Ranji Trophy match here on Thursday.
At stumps on the third and penultimate day, Delhi trailed the hosts by 215 runs with four lower-order batsmen to follow. Hyderabad notched up 460 in their first innings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Hiten Dalal was the day’s top-scorer with 93 off 180 balls while Nitish Rana, in his maiden season as Delhi skipper, contributed 82 off 179 deliveries.
While Dalal found the fence 14 times and cleared it once, Rana struck nine boundaries and a six. Resuming the day on overnight 21 for no loss, Delhi suffered their first blow when debutant Sarthak Ranjan was bowled by centurion T Ravi Teja with the visitors two short of 50 at the end of the 15th over. Ranjan made 20 off 66 balls.
Vice-captain Dhruv Shorey fell cheaply for nine, but after that Delhi looked solid with the duo of Dalal and Rana adding 114 runs for the third wicket. Slow left-arm spinner Tanay Thyagarajan, who finished the day with 3/41 in 21 overs, was quite impressive for a debutant and gave Hyderabad the much-needed breakthrough when he bowled Dalal.
TN-Andhra: Rain plays spoilsport
Rain played spoilsport washing out proceedings on the third day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group ‘B’ match between Tamil Nadu and Andhra.
Play was called off at 3 p.m owing to a steady drizzle. Tamil Nadu had reached 122 for 3 in 50 overs at stumps on day two in reply to Andhra’s first innings score of 216.
Only 140 runs were scored from around 60 overs of play yesterday before bad light intervened.
Kerala humiliate Bengal
Kerala blew away home favourites Bengal by nine wickets and with a day to spare for their second successive win in the Ranji Trophy, consolidating the position atop the Elite Group B standings.
Sandeep Warrier complemented opener Jalaj Saxena’s first innings 143 with an impressive 5/33 in the second essay.
