The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Mumbai goes in for batting practice

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 11, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Mumbai goes in for batting practice

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 10. Vinayak Mane made the most of an opportunity to have some batting practice as the Mumbai-Railway Elite group match of the Ranji Trophy ended in a listless draw at the Karnail Singh Stadium here on Wednesday.

The result had been a foregone conclusion once Mumbai had taken a 77-run first innings lead late on Tuesday. Mumbai received two points while Railways remained scoreless. Mumbai began the final day at three without loss and reached 211 for three when the play was called off after eight mandatory overs.

Mumbai coach Chandrakant Pandit wanted his batsmen to spend more time in the middle in view of the matches ahead. Railways, on its part, did not try too hard to deny Mumbai the pleasure of batting all day. After a point, many non-regular bowlers were pressed into service. In all, nine bowlers tried their hand with varying percentage of success.

Mane batted all day and came out unconquered at 111 including just six boundaries.

After Wasim Jaffer fell leg-before to Harvinder early in the day, Vineet Indulkar struck eight boundaries in his 53 to add to his confidence.

In fact, the proceedings on a day like this go on to strengthen the argument for a five-day league instead of the present four. Only if it were a five-day game, Mumbai could have tried for an outright verdict. Railways, too, could have made use of the time factor to attempt a comeback in the second innings.

Meanwhile, Mumbai medium pacer Avishkar Salvi has been ruled out for at least two matches due to the shoulder injury he suffered yesterday. It may be recalled that paceman Munaf Patel is already out for the season following a broken shoulder bone in the Irani Cup tie in Mohali in September.

In the second set of league matches commencing on November 16, Mumbai plays Madhya Pradesh at home and Railways hosts Bengal here.

The scores

Mumbai _ 1st innings: 361

Railways _ 1st innings: 284

Mumbai _ 2nd innings: Vinayak Mane (not out) 111, Wasim Jaffer lbw b Harvinder 11, Vineet Indulkar lbw b Parida 53, Amol Muzumdar c and b Verma 32, Vinayak Samant (not out) 0, Extras (b-5, lb-1, nb-7, w-1) 14, Total (for three wickets in 86 overs) 221.

Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-132, 3-221.

Railways bowling: Harvinder Singh 9-1-26-1, G. S. Rao 23-5-61-0, J. P. Yadav 7-3-10-0, Sanjay Bangar 15-2-39-0, Kulamani Parida 16-2-31-1, T. P. Singh 6-0-20-0, Shreyas Khanolkar 5-2-12-0, Amit Pagnis 2-0-6-0, Sidharth Verma 3-1-8-1.

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