Ranji Trophy round-up: Ravichandran Ashwin stars with four wickets as Tamil Nadu restrict Madhya Pradesh to 393

Rajat Patidar’s heroics from the first day continued as he made a fine 196 but Ravichandran Ashwin and M Mohammed pegged back with wickets as Tamil Nadu restricted Madhya Pradesh to 393 on Friday.

Tamil Nadu ended the day with 0/0 with India’s Test opener Murali Vijay at the crease. Patidar began on a strong note as he put up 43 runs with Shubham Sharma (43) to take his team to a position of strength and control in the game.

But from a dominating 317/4, they crashed to 393 all out after Sharma fell. Following the wicket, Patidar added 42 more runs with Yash Dubey. He stroked his way to 17 fours and also hit a six in his long knock which came off 406 deliveries. But he fell agonisingly short of a double hundred when he was caught behind off Mohammed.

From then on, Tamil Nadu dominated proceedings with Ashwin and Mohammed being the men in charge. The off-spinner snapped the last three batsmen to end with figures of 4/85 while Mohammed took 4/98.

In Group C, it was Chetan Bist who scored 159 to help Rajasthan end up with a total of 379 runs in their first innings. A good and strong effort with the bat followed up with an equally impressive show with the ball as they ended up reducing Jammu and Kashmir to 186/7 at stumps on day two.

Also read: Ranji Trophy round-up: Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai shine on opening day

However for Jammu and Kashmir, the lone bright spot of the day belonged to Mohammed Mudhasir, who took four wickets in four balls as he clinched the first hat-trick of the Ranji Trophy this season. The pacer dismissed Bist, Tajinder Singh Dhillon, Rahul Chahar and Tanvir Mashart Ul-Haq to etch his name in history as being only the second bowler in Ranji Trophy history after Delhi’s Shankar Saini who had achieved a similar feat way back in 1988 against Himachal Pradesh.

In Group A, Mumbai seemed to be cruise control after Shivam Dubey propelled them to 411 in their first innings with a maiden hundred (144). Siddhesh Lad, who had held fort for the former champions on the first day missed out a well-deserved hundred by a run.

Tushar Deshpande then ended the day with three scalps to his name as Railways ended the day at 115/6.

Group A:

Mumbai 1st Innings 411 (Shivam Dubey 114, Siddhesh Lad 99, Suryakumar Yadav 83, Harsh Tyagi 4/83) vs Railways 115/6 (Arindam Ghosh 39 batting, Tushar Deshpande 3/29).

Saurashtra 1st innings 475 (Sheldon Jackson 147, Snell Patel 91, Harvik Desai 78, Cheteshwar Pujara 56, Mohd Shahnawaz 4/97) vs Chhattisgarh 1st Innings 88/0 (Sahil Gupta 51 batting).

Baroda 1st innings 290 (Yusuf Pathan 69, Siddharth Desai 5/109) vs Gujarat 1st Innings 264/6 (Samit Gohil 63, Rujul Bhatt 70, Bharghav Bhatt 3/69).

Maharashtra 1st Innings 343 (Chirag Khurana 89, Rahul Tripathi 73, Aditya Sarvate 3/51) and 46/0. Vidarbha 120 (Wasim Jaffer 27, Satyajit Bachchav 3/3, Samad Fallah 2/21).

Group B:
Madhya Pradesh 393 in 157.4 overs (Rajat Patidar 196, Aryaman Vikram Birla 51, Naman Ojha 45, R Ashwin 4 for 85, M Mohammed 4 for 98) vs TN 0/0.

Kerala 495 for 6 declared in 164 overs (Sachin Baby 147, V A Jagadeesh 113 not out, Jalaj Saxena 58, Sanju Samson 53, Saketh 3 for 110) vs Hyderabad 1/0 in 1 over.

Bengal 380 in 116.1 overs (Manoj Tiwary 55, Anustup Majumdar 52, Abhishek Kumar Raman 48, PP Jaswal 5 for 81, RR Dhawan 2 for 56) vs Himachal Pradesh 124 for 3 in 43 overs (A K Bains 79 batting, Ashoke Dinda 2 for 25).

Punjab 414 all out in 156.2 overs (Sanvir Singh 110, Mayank Markande 68 not out, Mandeep Singh 68, Shubman Gill 56, B Ayyappa 3 for 78, Karn Sharma 3 for 115) vs Andhra Pradesh 54 for 3 in 26 overs.

Group C:

Rajasthan 379 (Chetan Bist 159, Mohammed Mudhasir 5-90) vs Jammu and Kashmir 186/7 (Parvez Rasool 47, T M Haq 3-59, Rahul Chahar 3-59)

Odisha 324 (Anurag Sarangi 114, Shantanu Mishra 71) vs Haryana 239/3 (Himanshu Rana 113 batting, Chaitanya Bishnoi 75).

Tripura 360 (Bishal Ghosh 201) vs Services 136/3 (Aanshul Gupta 62).

Jharkhand 344 (Anukul Roy 80, Utkarsh Singh 76) vs Assam 126/2 (Gokul Sharma batting 49 Sibsankar Roy batting 47).

Goa 152 (Darshan Misal 43, Sagun Kamat 41, Shivam Mavi 4-25) against Uttar Pradesh 473/3 (Aksh Deep Nath 155 not out, Mohammed Saif 126).