Railways tailenders to the rescue
Tailenders once again came to the rescue of a stranded Railways to help them earn an invaluable
50-run first innings lead on the third day of the Irani Cup
cricket match against Rest of India in Delhi on Thursday.
Mired in deep trouble at 209 for eight in reply to Rest
of India's first innings score of 266, the Ranji Trophy champions
Railways were put back on track by a cheeky 59 from Harvinder Singh and cameos by Shreyas Khanolkar (36) and Zakir Hussain (35 not out), as the team scored 316 before being
bowled out 20 minutes before tea.
The other Railways batsman who showed grit was opener J P
Yadav, who completed a well-deserving century, scoring 104, but
the rest of the top order including prolific scorers of last
Ranji season, Yere Goud and Amit Pagnis, falied to click.
Rest of India began their second innings positively,
reaching 84 without loss at stumps, with openers Akash Chopra
batting on 41 and Wasim Jaffer on 38.
The good start by the Rest side threw the match wide open and
as Railways coach Vinod Sharma said, "It could be anyone's
game."
"We were in real deep trouble, but as in the past couple
of seasons, our tailenders proved equal to the task showing
their skill with the bat in ample measure," he added.
Rest, who have been winning the Cup for the last three
editions, showed their intentions that they would not
let the hosts have a party at their home ground by playing the
day out sensibly without any loss of a wicket.
Both Chopra and Jaffer faced exactly the same number of
balls and punished the loose deliveries while wisely leaving
out the balls that kept deceptively low.
Jaffer, who started slowly, hit six fours in his 87-ball
knock while Chopra, who missed a century by eight runs in the
first innings, looked determined not to miss the bus this time,
cracking five sweetly timed fours.
Together, the Rest openers knocked off the 50-run deficit
and with skipper Yuvraj Singh, Abhijit Kale and Rohan Gavaskar
yet to bat, the Rest side, which had won the toss and elected
to bat, looked in a strong position.
Another point in their
favour is that the Railways would have to bat last on a pitch
that is already showing signs of deteriorating.
Earlier, Railways, who resumed at 135 for three, lost
five wickets in the first two hours of the pre-lunch session
and had it not been for Harvinder Singh, they would have been
sent packing quite early.
Yadav, 71 overnight, duly completed his century with the
help of 11 fours and two sixes but failed to get support from
the other end.
Rest speedster Tinu Yohannan grabbed two wickets off the
first two balls of his first over of the day dismissing the
other overnight batsman Jacob Martin, trapped leg before
wicket for 26, and Raja Ali, caught by wicketkeeper Vijay
Dahiya, for a duck.
But Harvinder Singh brought back the cheers by some
audacious over-the-ropes shots. He hit one four and five
sixes, with three of them coming off spinner Sourashish Lahiri
and one each off Yuvraj Singh and Sarandeep Singh who finally
clean bowled him.
Mail Cricket Editor
