Mumbai lose Prithvi Shaw and Shreyas Iyer early, MP bundle out Odisha for 147 and Swapnil Singh rescues Baroda after TN pacers strike
ESPNcricinfo staff25-Nov-2017Mumbai started their quest to qualify for the knockouts by dismissing Tripura for 195 but stuttered in reply to end the day on 77 for 3 at Wankhede Stadium. The hosts lost Prithvi Shaw and Shreyas Iyer for one run each and Suryakumar Yadav for 30 even as Jay Bista kept their hopes alive with an unbeaten 43.Medium-pacer Akash Parkar – playing his fourth first-class match – capitalised on Mumbai’s decision to bowl with a maiden five-wicket haul. Dhawal Kulkarni dented Tripura with two early wickets before Parkar also struck twice and Bista effected a run-out to leave the tourists reeling on 96 for 5.Yashpal Singh halted the collapse with his 33. His 41-run stand with captain Manisankar Murasingh who went on to score 43 led the score past 150. But Parkar dismissed both Yashpal and Murasingh and was on a hat-trick in the 54th over to leave Tripura on 152 for 8. The visitors added another 43 for the last two wickets before Kulkarni took the last wicket to finish with 3 for 67 while Parkar had 5 for 32 from 16 overs.In reply, Shaw lasted only 12 deliveries as he was bowled by Rana Dutta and Murasingh had Iyer caught behind in the seventh over. Bista and Suryakumar counterattacked with a 50-run stand in less than 11 overs, Suryakumar handed a return catch to Abhijit Sarkar for 30 which made them stutter again.Led by Chandrakant Sakure, Madhya Pradesh’s pace attack ran through Odisha to bundle them out for 147 on the first day in Indore. Sakure’s four-for was assisted by three wickets from Puneet Datey and two from Ishwar Pandey, before MP ended the day on a stable 96 for 1, trailing by only 51 runs.MP’s bowlers cashed in on their decision to bowl as Datey struck on his sixth ball and Pandey in his third over. Only opener Ranjit Singh, captain Govinda Poddar and No. 5 Shantanu Mishra scored in double-digits as the MP bowlers did not allow any partnership to go beyond 44. Mishra resisted with 60 in over two hours even as Sakure troubled the middle and lower order. Odisha lost five wickets for only 33 runs to stutter to 138 for 9 before they were all out in the 53rd over.MP lost opener and debutant Aryaman Birla for a patient 16 off 67 when he was trapped lbw after an opening stand of 72 with Rajat Patidar. Captain Devendra Bundela and Patidar played out the next nine overs as Patidar did the bulk of the scoring with an unbeaten 72 with the help of nine fours.Swapnil Singh’s unbeaten 94 led the Baroda score past 250 while the Tamil Nadu medium-pacers helped remove eight batsmen in Vadodara. All of Baroda’s top five batsmen got starts with double-digit scores but only Swapnil converted and scored beyond 25. He was later assisted with a useful 42 from No. 9 Kartik Kakade, putting on 69 runs for the eighth wicket.K Vignesh started Baroda’s stutter by removing the openers and Washington Sundar dismissed Vishnu Solanki for 20. Deepak Hooda, the captain, then handed a return catch to Sai Kishore for 20. Baroda lost four wickets for 37 runs – two of those taken by J Kousik – leaving the hosts on 176 for 7. Swapnil and Kakade joined forces to steer them close to 250 before Kakade was run-out, but after hitting five fours and two sixes. Swapnil struck three sixes and 10 fours as he led the team to 254 for 8.
