B. Indrajith (122 n.o., 187b, 6x4) continued his excellent form this season with a composed unbeaten hundred to take Tamil Nadu to 291 for four on the opening day of the final Ranji Trophy league match against Punjab at the Salem Cricket Foundation ground on Friday.
On the way to his 16th First-Class century, and the second of the season, the 29-year-old also went past 5,000 runs in this format.
He found support from Vijay Shankar, who remained unbeaten on 85, with the duo adding 184 runs for the fifth wicket, to help the host recover from a precarious 107 for four. It is the second hundred-run stand between the two batters in as many matches after they added 125 runs for the sixth wicket against Karnataka in Chennai earlier this week.
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Electing to bat, Tamil Nadu had a poor first session when its in-form batters gifted their wickets on a good batting surface. While pacer Siddharth Kaul trapped opener S. Lokeshwar early on, Pradosh Ranjan Paul and N. Jagadeesan steadied things till the first drinks break, before pressing the self-destruct button.
Pradosh, who looked good during his brief stay, tried to take on off-spinner Sukhwinder Singh and perished, giving a simple catch to mid-off fielder Nehal Wadhera. Jagadeesan followed suit, trying the same off Sukhwinder only to hit it straight to Wadhera at mid-on.
However, as he has done in the past, Indrajith rescued the team in his trademark style. He used his feet well to dance down and hit the spinners through the on-side and pick ones and twos. When the bowlers pulled their lengths back, he used the crease to cut with finesse to find the square boundary, also getting to his half-century with one such shot.
On a slow pitch, the visitors’ spinners hardly troubled the batters, trying to tie down the batters with a packed leg-side field and bowling on the pads.
Shankar has also looked untroubled at the other end and hit a few boundaries with some deft late cuts through third-man and will look to score his first ton of the season on Day 2 and help his side post a big total in this must-win game.
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