After two sessions of exhibiting the restraint and discipline that seemed like the perfect foil for the quest that England has taken upon itself to reinvigorate the soul of red-ball cricket, Madhya Pradesh’s resolve lapsed in the final session of the opening day of its Ranji Trophy Elite Group D fixture against Pondicherry here at the CAP Ground 2 on Friday.
Poised to bury the host under an imposing total, MP crumbled from 152 for two at Tea to 224 for seven at stumps. Skipper Shubham Sharma’s indiscretion in the first over of the third session set the precedent as he was caught in the slips playing away from his body off Gourav Yadav.
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Himanshu Mantri (77, 191b, 3x4, 1x6) and Venkatesh Iyer followed suit, perishing in quick succession while driving outside off-stump, with Saurabh Yadav accounting for both batters.
Earlier, openers Yash Dubey (59, 160b, 7x4) and Mantri refrained from committing the error that haunted the rest of their teammates later. Dubey shouldered arms to all the six deliveries, bowled by Gourav, in the first over of the match after Pondicherry elected to bowl.
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In the second, he drove expansively and got an outside edge that was spilt in the cordon. Dubey then put a premium on his wicket, only flicking the overpitched deliveries on leg-stump and slashing at the short stuff when offered room to collect all the six boundaries that MP scored in the first session.
Mantri shifted gears after Lunch, adding to the frustration of Sagar Udeshi, who saw Dubey and Shubham reprieved off his bowling. The left-arm spinner troubled the batters with turn and extra bounce, but castled Dubey with one that kept low to end the 112-run opening stand.
He picked two more wickets in the final hour of the day, before Saransh Jain and Anubhav Agarwal averted further damage with an unbeaten 27-run rearguard.
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