Half-centuries from captain Virat Singh and veteran batter Saurabh Tiwary helped Jharkhand take a slender lead of 19 runs against hosts Puducherry on Wednesday. At the end of Day 2 of their penultimate round fixture of Ranji Trophy Elite Group C, the visitors reached 250 for the loss of three wickets at Sree Lakshmi Narayana Institute of Medical Sciences Cricket Ground in Puducherry.
Leading from the front Virat is batting on 79 while Tiwary is giving him company at the other end with an unbeaten 58. The duo has already put on 118 runs off 200 balls for the unbroken fourth-wicket partnership and will hope to continue when play begins on Thursday morning to help the visiting side to a huge first-innings total.
A sizeable lead in the first innings will also give Jharkhand a chance to go for an outright win against the home side to garner maximum points from the encounter and thereby making their case stronger for a quarterfinal berth from the group.
Earlier, resuming on 217 for seven, Puducherry were all out for 231 on Wednesday morning. Veteran left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem bowled an impeccable line and length as usual to account for the first two wickets to fall on the day. Nadeem bowled Krishna Pandey in the second over of the day before trapping rival captain Damodaran Rohit’s leg in front of the stumps in his next over. His younger spin partner Anukul Roy took the last wicket of the Puducherry innings as the hosts could add only 14 runs to their overnight total playing less than five overs on Wednesday.
In reply, Jharkhand made a slow but steady start but none of their top 3 batters could convert the starts as they were down to 132/3 in 51st over of their innings. While opener Kumar Deobrat departed after playing a patient knock of 19 runs off 78 balls, other opener Aryaman Sen and No. 3 Kumar Suraj fell in their 40s.
Then the skipper and Tiwary joined forces to turn the tables and see there’s no further damage to the innings before stumps. Left-arm orthodox spinner Sagar Udeshi took all three wickets for Puducherry.
Brief scores: Puducherry 231 all out in 91.4 overs (A Karthick 68, P Dogra 68, A Kothandapani 31; Ashish 3/34, A Roy 3/78). Jharkhand 250/3 in 84 overs (Virat 79 batting, S Tiwary 58 batting, K Suraj 45, A Sen 44; S Udeshi 3/93). Match to continue.
