CHENNAI: A professional display by Chhattisgarh came in handy for the visitors to post a challenging 293 for 2 in 90 overs against Tamil Nadu on the opening day of the third round of the Ranji Trophy played at Sri Ramakrishna College grounds in Coimbatore on Saturday.
Opener Ayush Pandey with his maiden First Class hundred (124) set the platform for Chhattisgarh’s top order to exploit the conditions to put their team in a position of strength.
Once again the left-handed opening pair of Ayush and Rishabh Tiwari (46) complimented each other to add 124 runs in 39 overs.
Chhattisgarh skipper Amandeep Khare was not surprised by the good show by his teammates. He attributes good preparation for the season in advance as the reason behind the good show.
”Pleased with the effort of our batters, in particular Ayush. For the last few seasons, we have been batting well as a unit. Many of the boys have been doing well in age group (U-25) cricket and have graduated in good shape for the Ranji trophy,” Khare told TNIE.
”In fact, we had prepared well for the Ranji season. We played the Buchi Babu tournament in Tamil Nadu which was a boon as we had good preparation batting and bowling in different conditions against quality sides. Guess that came in handy today,” the captain added.
Early in the morning the wicket generally has something for the fast bowlers. The hosts’ new ball pair of M Mohammed and Sonu Yadav bowled in tandem and tried to make inroads but were unsuccessful.
Tamil Nadu captain N Jagadeesan brought in M Siddharth early to break the partnership. Siddharth has been a wicket-to-wicket bowler who bowls at a nagging length and gives little room to play the shots. He has often delivered whenever he had an opportunity, but on Saturday the Chattisgarh batters carefully negotiated him. His 24 overs cost 81 runs as he went wicketless.
One must admit that Jagadeesan tried his best to get the breakthrough by even making Vijay Shankar bowl a couple of overs.
Rishabh Tiwari fell to Mohammed due to a lapse of concentration and after a well-deserved century, Ayush caved into the guile of Ajith Ram.
Anuj Tiwary (68 batting) and Sanjeet Desai (52 batting) forged a good stand and continued the good work of the openers later in the day.
“Anuj and Sanjeet are looking solid. The wicket still looks good at the close of play and should be the same on Sunday. So we expect to put some more runs on the board, insisted a modest Khare.”
Tamil Nadu spinner Ajith Ram insisted that the toss played a big role in the day’s proceedings.
“It was a beautiful wicket to bat upon. Had we won the toss we would have batted first. Having said that we will go all out on Chhattisgarh on Sunday and try to pick as many wickets as possible. We too have a good batting line up so the game should be interesting,” said Ajith Ram.
