Even the players would concede the heroes of the day were the dedicated members of the ground staff. They worked overnight to get ready the flooded cricket field of the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex here. If play resumed on Tuesday, the entire credit lay with the ground staff.
Their splendid work almost came unstuck when rain returned to the venue to delay the start of the second day’s play in the Duleep Trophy match. Rain, however, relented and India Blue, resuming at 105 for no loss, finished at 200 for five, falling to the guiles of left-arm Kuldeep Yadav, who picked up four wickets in the span of 13 balls.
The first ball of the day was bowled after three inspections, with five super-soppers employed to dry the ground. The bowlers’ run up was damaged too but they filled up the patches with artificial turf. The ground had resembled a large pool on Monday night following heavy downpour but it wore a transformed look following the efforts of the ground staff. The young brigade, under the guidance of curators Taposh Chatterjee and Shiv Kumar, and local official Rajiv Tyagi, deserved a huge pat for getting the field playable.
It was nothing less than a miracle when the teams – India Red and India Blue – took the field with Mayank Agarwal (53) and skipper Gautam Gambhir (51) aiming to keep their wickets intact. Agarwal was distinctly lucky to survive a leg-before shout against Nathu Singh, who continued to trouble the batsmen while Gambhir mostly nudged the ball in an effort to play out the day. The left-hander was determined to come up with a big score at the start of the season but fell to Nathu when he was late in coming down on the ball. His 77 off 143 balls was studded with ten fours, most of them square of the wicket.
Agarwal concentrated hard on his job. He did give himself the freedom to play some shots in front of the wicket but ran out of patience eight runs short of a century. His predetermined charge off left-arm Kuldeep Yadav ended in disaster – he was stranded yards down the pitch in a most uncharacteristic end to an otherwise sedate knock. There was success for India Red when Suryakumar Yadav produced a shocking shot – moving down the pitch only to miss the ball that gave Kuldeep his second wicket. Kuldeep added two more, Baba Aparajith edging to slip and Karn Sharma trapped plumb first ball, with India Blue aggregating 95 runs in 27.4 overs.
The scores:
India Blue – 1st innings: Mayank Agarwal st Bharat b Yadav 92 (167b, 10x4, 1x6), Gautam Gambhir lbw b Nathu 77 (143b, 10x4), B. Aparajith c Rana b Yadav 19 (30b, 3x4), Suryakumar Yadav st Bharat b Yadav 5 (12b, 1x4), Karn Sharma lbw b Yadav 0 (1b), Dinesh Karthik (batting) 0 912b), Sheldon Jackson (batting) 0 (9b), Extras (nb-2, pen 5) 1, Total (for five wkts in 62 overs) 200.
Fall of wickets: 1-151 (Gambhir), 2-188 (Agarwal), 3-199 (Suryakumar), 4-199 (Karn), 5-200 (Aparajith).
India Red bowling: Nathu Singh 13-0-54-1 (nb-2), Pradeep Sangwan 13-2-46-0, Ishwar Pandey 12-4-23-0, Kuldeep Yadav 18-2-49-4, Akshay Wakhare 5-0-18-0, Yuvraj Singh 1-0-5-0.
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