Suyash Prabhudessai swept and reverse-swept his way to his fifth first-class century (104, 192b, 17x4) before Goa lost its last five wickets for just eight runs to be bowled out for 241 versus Tamil Nadu on day one of the elite Group-C match in the fifth round of the Ranji Trophy at the Goa Cricket Association (GCA) Academy ground here on Friday.
Opting to bat, Goa lost its opener Ishaan Gadekar, lbw to Sandeep Warrier off the third ball of the match.
Manthan Khutkar’s dismissal was nicely set up. Warrier, bowling from over the wicket, closely beat his outside edge once, got a short delivery to climb up on him, and followed it up with another short ball that he fended off to the leg side. Captain Sai Kishore immediately had a short leg in place and proceeded to have himself at the short cover too, for the last two balls. In the first ball of his next over, Warrier switched to bowl from around the wicket to have Khutkar spoon a catch to Sai Kishore.
One striking aspect of Prabhudessai’s innings was that he swept the spinners a lot. So much so that he played at least one sweep in every over that any spinner bowled! In Sai Kishore’s second over of the day, he reverse-swept twice above the slip for back-to-back fours and swept for four a ball later.
In the 70th over, post-lunch, he swept four times off Sai Kishore. He hit one of the sweeps to short fine leg for a single and ran an extra run on the overthrow to bring up his century off 186 balls with 16 fours. Ironically, he missed his sweep to be dismissed, lbw, off Ajith Ram. He had the initial fortune that his two edges off M. Mohammed fell short of the second slip and went through between the keeper and the first slip.
READ | Ranji Trophy 2023-24: Sachin Baby shines again as Kerala frustrates Chhattisgarh on Day 1
He was involved in a 144-run third-wicket partnership with Krishnamurthy Siddharth (69, 142b, 8x4, 2x6). Siddharth remarkably hit a six to the deep cover boundary and was dropped on 69 by Lokeshwar at long-on off Ajith Ram, who eventually had him lbw.
Goa captain Darshan Misal, who slog-swept a six out of the ground off Ajith Ram, was dropped on 17 by Pradosh Ranjan Paul at second slip off Sandeep Warrier. Misal swept to be caught behind off Sai Kishore.
Goa was awarded five penalty runs as a Tamil Nadu fielder’s throw hit the helmet placed at the wicketkeeper’s end.
Arjun Tendulkar was a tad unfortunate on the day. He responded to his partner’s call and was run out at the striker’s end, and dismissed Tamil Nadu opener and Ranji Trophy debutant S. Lokeshwar, lbw, off a no-ball on the first ball of the second innings. He was cock-a-hoop, only to be disappointed.
Comments
SHARE