Ranji Trophy 2018-19, 2nd round: Day 2 round-up

Hyderabad and Bengal rode on their captains' double-centuries to end the day in dominant positions, having amassed over 500 first-innings runs.

Manoj Tiwary poses with his bat after scoring a double-century for Bengal against Madhya Pradesh.

Double centuries by Hyderabad and Bengal skippers —— Akshath Reddy and Manoj Tiwary —— against Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, respectively lit up the second day of the ongoing Ranji Trophy season on Tuesday.

Reddy is unbeaten on 248 and was supported by Bavanaka Sandeep’s 130 to propel Hyderabad to a mammoth 523/7 against host Tamil Nadu in the Elite Group B tie in Tirunelveli.

In another Elite Group B match, Bengal skipper Tiwary remained unbeaten on 201 and with the support of Koushik Ghosh’s 100, guided the host to a massive 510/9 against Madhya Pradesh at the Eden Gardens.

In reply, Madhya Pradesh openers —— Aryaman Birla and Ankit Dane —— went back undivided after scoring 15/0 at stumps.

In other Group B ties, Himachal Pradesh trailed Delhi by 101 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla here, while Kerala trailed Andhra by 27 runs in Thiruvananthapuram.

Himachal rode on all-rounder Rishi Dhawan’s 64 to crawl back from a top-order collapse and ended the day 216 for eight in response to Delhi’s 316.

In Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala was comfortably placed at 227/1, thanks to an unbeaten 127 from opener Jalaj Saxena in reply to the visitor’s first-innings total of 254, mainly centred around Ricky Bhui’s 109.

In Group A, India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja’s unbeaten 178 helped Saurashtra reach 344/8 at stumps and gain a crucial 144-run first-innings lead over the Railways in Rajkot.

In Valsad, Gujarat rode on brilliant centuries by Manprit Juneja (107) and wicketkeeper Dhruv Raval (116) to post a massive 538/7 declared before its bowlers took two quick wickets to reduce Chhattisgarh to 53/2 at stumps.

In Vadodara, Maharashtra reached 253/8, to trail host Baroda by 69 runs while in Nagpur, Karnataka found itself struggling at 208/5 and still trailing Vidharbha by 99 runs.

Coming to Group C, Goa rode on Snehal Suhas Kauthankar’s unbeaten 106 and healthy contributions from the top order to reach a commanding 422/7 against Jammu and Kashmir at Porvorim.

In another Group C tie, Assam bowled Tripura out for a meagre 139 in response to its first innings score of 327, before reaching 5/0 in their second innings at Agartala.

In Bhubaneswar, Uttar Pradesh rode skipper Akshdeep Nath’s undefeated 151 to pile up 361/6 and take a handsome 105-run lead against host Odisha, while the Services took a lead of 219 runs by reaching 127/4 in their second essay against Rajasthan in Jaipur.

The host was earlier bowled out for a meagre 136 in response to the visitor's first-innings score of 228 at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.

In the other Group C tie, Jharkhand made light work of Haryana to beat it comprehensively by nine wickets at Rohtak.

In the Plate Group , Arunachal Pradesh gained a massive 329-run lead over Northeastern rival Mizoram in Assam’s Jorhat while host Nagaland trailed Sikkim by 98 runs in Dimapur.

In the other two Plate-Group matches, Meghalaya trailed host Puducherry by 228 runs while Manipur took a slender 52-run lead over Uttarakhand in Dehradun.