Mrunal Devdhar’s fluent knock of 47 helped Railways consolidate on its strong start against Tamil Nadu on the first day of the Group A Ranji Trophy league encounter here on Thursday.
Railways was in command at 87 for three, after Deepak Bansal and M.R. Chaudhary took seven wickets between them in bundling out Tamil Nadu for 121.
Utilising the conditionsRailways opted to bowl and utilised the lively conditions to rattle Tamil Nadu which looked to be in a hurry to get over its batting and show its bowling strength.
Even though the conditions kept improving with the bright sun, only Malolan Rangarajan put up a fight with an unbeaten 36 off 50 balls with five hits to the fence.
The team could have still gained ground but for dropping Mrunal with the Railways score at 47 for two.
When Railways began its innings, Tamil Nadu got an early breakthrough with K. Vignesh effecting a brilliant run out. Vignesh later sent Shivakant Shukla’s off-stump flying to further inspire the team.
A lot would depend on how well the Tamil Nadu medium-pacers utilise the favourable conditions in the morning session, the way Deepak and Chaudhary had done with a disciplined approach.
Tamil Nadu has shown that it has the ability to fight when the chips are down, going by its last encounter against Mumbai, though it lost by two wickets. A few tame dismissals allowed the situation to deteriorate when a little more patience could have probably helped it dominate in spectacularly bright conditions in the afternoon.
The scores:Tamil Nadu — 1st innings: M.S. Washington Sundar lbw b Bansal 17, Abhinav Mukund lbw b Chaudhary 22, Kaushik Gandhi c Chaudhary b Anureet 3, B. Aparajith c Rawat b Bansal 1, D. Karthik lbw b Bansal 18, B. Indrajith c Shukla b Bansal 13, J. Kousik c Rawat b Chaudhary 0, Malolan Rangarajan (not out) 36, Aswin Crist c Ashish b Chaudhary 6, K. Vignesh b Karn 2, T. Natarajan run out 0; Extras (lb-1, nb-2): 3; Total (in 42.2 overs): 121.
Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-28, 3-29, 4-58, 5-76, 6-77, 7-77, 8-84, 9-103.
Railways bowling: Anureet Singh 13-4-34-1, Deepak Bansal 15-4-48-4, M.R. Chaudhary 12-1-31-3, Karn Sharma 2.2-0-7-1.
Railways — 1st innings: S. Wakaskar run out 9, Shivakant Shukla b Vignesh 11, M. Devdhar lbw b Natarajan 47, V. Cheluvaraj (batting) 11, Arindam Ghosh (batting) 8; Extras (nb-1): 1; Total (for three wkts. in 36 overs): 87.
Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-32, 3-78.
Tamil Nadu bowling: Aswin Crist 9-2-26-0, T. Natarajan 11-4-36-1, K. Vignesh 9-4-8-1, J. Kousik 5-1-7-0, Malolan Rangarajan 2-0-10-0.
Toss: Railways.
