The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Saxena and Khanolkar prop up Railways

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Saxena and Khanolkar prop up Railways

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: Defending champion Railways laboured to 191 for five at close on the first day of the four-day Elite group `A' Ranji Trophy league match against Bengal at the Eden Gardens here on Tuesday. Railways managed to save the day by stumps thanks to No. 3 Vineet Saxena whose gritty 65 and his third wicket partnership of 90 runs with Shreyas Khanolkar (35) ensured that the visiting team would not spend a sleepless night.

Both the unbeaten batsmen, Yere Goud and Raja Ali, were dropped in slips at the fag end of the day. But for these blemishes Bengal could have had a very satisfying day indeed.

Batting first, Railways, in danger of being relegated to plate division if it failed to garner full points from this final league encounter, lost two quick wickets that of skipper Sunjoy Bangar and Amit Pagnis. Saxena and Khanolkar, however, applied themselves and grafted for runs to not only arrest the slide but slowly took it to safer waters.

Despite losing Khanolkar and Jai Prakash Yadav in quick succession, Saxena looked set for a century when Bose brought one in sharply and trapped him leg before. Saxena held the centre stage for nearly five hours in which he faced 251 balls and hit seven fours.

Railways would have to score in excess of 350 runs to make a match of this tie.

The scores:

Railways — 1st innings: S. Bangar lbw b Paul 21, A. Pagnis c Tiwari b Shukla 9, V. Saxena lbw b Bose 65, S. Khanolkar c Dasgupta b Paul 35, J.P. Yadav c Das b Lahiri 15, Y. Goud (batting) 18, R. Ali (batting) 8. Extras (b-2, lb-7, nb-11): 20. Total (for five wickets in 91 overs): 191.

Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-30, 3-110, 4-139, 5-181.

Bengal bowling: Paul 23-7-39-2, Bose 20-9-44-1, Shukla 10-3-26-1, Lahiri 25-7-58-1, Singh 13-6-15-0.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport