2017-18 Ranji Trophy- round 2, day 1: Ravindra Jadeja's ton put Saurashtra in control; Yuvraj Singh fails
Saurashtra batsmen Sheldon Jackson and Ravindra Jadeja hogged the limelight on the opening day of the second round of 2017-18 Ranji Trophy as the duo scored individual centuries to rescue their side from 59/3 including the wicket of Pujara for 13 to 428/4 at the close of day's play against Jammu and Kashmir at the SCA stadium in Rajkot.
Sheldon took the attack to the opposition as he scored 156-ball 181 with the help of 22 fours and seven sixes. Jadeja, on the other hand, remained unbeaten on 150 off 217 balls with 18 fours and two sixes and is on course for his fourth first-class triple century.
Earlier in the day, discarded Indian batsmen Yuvraj Singh managed to score just 20 as Punjab were bundled out for just 161 in the first innings against Vidharbha. Gautam Gambhir scored just 2 runs on his birthday while Yusuf Pathan, who scored twin centuries in the first round, got out for just 1 and his brother, Irfan got out for a second-ball duck against Andhra.
After toiling hard for 19.2 overs, off-spinner R Ashwin got a wicket as Tamil Nadu have the edge over Tripura as the visitors were reeling at 244/7. Indian opener Murali Vijay is not taking part in the match that is being played in Chennai.
Defending Champions Gujarat were off to a great start as Piyush Chawla, who is playing his first game for the state, registered a fifer on Gujarat debut to restrict Kerala to just 208 in the first innings. In reply, the Parthiv Patel-led side were 60/2. The leading run-getter of the 2016-17 season, Priyank Panchal, departed for just 18.
Here is what happened on day one of the second round.
Mohali: Vidarbha 106/1 (SR Ramaswamy 52*) trail Punjab 161 (Abhishek Gupta 89, Lalit Yadav 3/47, SS Neral 3/48) by 55 runs.
Chennai: Tripura 244/7 (Yashpal Sharma 96, Smit Patel 99, K Vignesh 2/36) vs Tamil Nadu.
Delhi: Delhi 318/6 (Nitish Rana 89, Anuj Rawat 74, Anureet Singh 3/71) vs Railways.
Mysore: Karnataka 77/0 (R Samarth 47*, Mayank Agarwal 26*) trail Assam 145 (Gokul Sharma 55, K Gowtham 4/20, Shreyas Gopal 3/43) by 68 runs.
Raipur: Bengal 283/2 (Koushik Ghosh 114. Abhishek Raman 94, Sudip Chatterjee 58*) vs Chhattisgarh.
Jaipur: Rajasthan 250/4 (AV Gautam 103*, TN Dhillon 66*) vs Jharkhand.
Dharamsala: Himachal Pradesh 2/0 trail Goa 255 (Rituraj Singh 55*, Pankaj Jaiswal 4/59) by 253 runs.
Rajkot: Saurashtra 428/4 (Sheldon Jackson 181, Ravindra Jadeja 150*) vs Jammu and Kashmir.
Nadiad: Gujarat 60/2 (Samit Gohil 26*) trail Kerala 208 (Sanju Samson 51, Piyush Chawla 5/69, SA Desai 3/90) by 148 runs.
Baroda: Baroda 247/7 (Kedar Devdhar 93, Vishnu Solanki 61, Ayyappa Bandaru 3/46) vs Andhra.
Indore: Madhya Pradesh 250/5 (Naman Ojha 99*, Ankit Sharma 63*, Akash Parker 2/48) vs Mumbai.
Hyderabad: Day 1 between Hyderabad and Uttar Pradesh washed out.