Southpaw B. Sandeep cracked a brilliant century and was involved in a crucial 117-run stand for the seventh wicket with the hard-hitting Mehdi Hasan to help Hyderabad take a 224-run lead against Goa on the third day of the four-day Ranji Trophy Group C match at the old VCA Stadium here on Saturday.
After a 30-minute delayed start because of bad light in the morning, Hyderabad lost a couple of wickets cheaply.
First, overnight centurion Akshath Reddy stepped out only to be stumped off seasoned left-arm spinner Shadab Jakati. Wicketkeeper-batsman K. Sumanth was bowled playing all over to a length ball from medium-pacer Saurabh Bandekar.
However, Sandeep continued to bat with great freedom and was particularly strong on the off-side with his flowing cuts and drives. He was joined by another southpaw Mehdi Hasan who surprised many with his belligerent batting while compiling his half-century (62, 112b, 10 x 4, 1 x 6).
It clearly was a Sandeep show (108, 238b, 11 x 4, 1 x 6) as he displayed the technical correctness in essaying cricketing shots. The way he stepped out to loft off-spinner Amit Yadav over long-on for a six and then pulled Saurabh Bandekar with ease were proof of his class. He reached his fifth century in his 32nd Ranji match sweeping Jakati to the fence.
It was the partnership of Sandeep and Mehdi Hasan which helped Hyderabad take a handsome lead even as dark clouds were hovering around.
And strangely, even though Hyderabad led by 212 runs at tea break, the declaration never came. In fact, Hyderabad was eventually bowled out in four overs after tea break.
Bad light followed by heavy rains forced an early end to the day’s proceedings with Goa on five for no loss in 2.3 overs.
The scores (round one, day three):
Group A
At Jaipur: Baroda 544 for eight decl. vs. Gujarat 277 for four in 105 overs (Samit Gohil 43, Bhargav Merai 70, Manpreet Juneja 66 batting, Rujul Bhatt 38 batting)
At Lahli: Tamil Nadu 87 & 185 in 62.4 overs (Abhinav Mukund 56, Washington Sundar 40, Dhawal Kulkarni six for 47, Vijay D. Gohil three for 36) lost to Mumbai 176 & 97 for eight in 35.3 overs (Abhishek Nayar 45 n.o., Aswin Crist four for 43, K. Vignesh four for 29)
At New Delhi (Palam): Railways 331 & 180 for two in 67 overs (Saurabh Wakaskar 56 retired hurt, Shivakant Shukla 83 batting, Mahesh Rawat 34 batting) vs. Punjab 215 in 80.1 overs (Uday Kaul 61, Gurkeerat Mann 66, Manjeet Chaudhary four for 56)
At Hyderabad: Madhya Pradesh 465 & 118 for two in 53 overs (Tanmay Srivastava 60 batting) vs. Uttar Pradesh 176 in 63.2 overs (Eklavya Dwivedi 37, Kuldeep Yadav 36, Ishwar Pandey three for 65, Gourav Yadav four for 44)
Group B
At Vizianagaram: Saurashtra 430 vs. Rajasthan 62 for one in 19 overs (Manender Singh 44 batting)
At Visakhapatnam: Odisha 150 & 74 for no loss in 22 overs (Sandeep Pattnaik 40 batting) vs. Vidarbha 272 for six decl. in 102 overs (Faiz Fazal 99, Ganesh Satish 74, Deepak Behera three for 35)
At New Delhi (Karnail Singh stadium): Maharashtra 210 & 188 in 61.4 overs (Rahul Tripathi 32, Kedar Jadhav 56, Ashish Kumar three for 44, Shahbaz Nadeem three for 43) vs. Jharkhand 306 in 105.2 overs (Kaushal Singh 130, Virat Singh 46, Saurabh Tiwary 33, Shrikant Mundhe four for 102, Anupam Sanklecha five for 71) & 56 for four in 13 overs
At Vadodara: Assam 193 & 100 for three in 37 overs (Rahul Hazarika 40, Amit Verma 33 batting) vs. Delhi 589 for eight decl. in 128.1 overs (Unmukt Chand 55, Nitish Rana 146, Rishabh Pant 146, Pradeep Sangwan 100 n.o., Milind Kumar 92, Abu Nechim five for 106)
Group C
At Bhubaneswar: Himachal 357 in 93.2 overs (Stephen three for 74) vs. Andhra 47 for one in 14 overs
At Ranchi: Tripura 118 & 149 in 84.3 (Ajay Mandal four for 55) overs lost to Chhattisgarh 255 & 13 for one in 3.5 overs
At Nagpur: Goa 164 & five for no loss in 2.3 overs vs. Hyderabad 388 in 130 overs (Akshath Reddy 128, Bavanaka Sandeep 108, Mehdi Hasan 62, S. Badrinath 41, Amit Yadav three for 73)
At Mumbai: Services 197 & 148 for two in 44 overs (Nakul Verma 54 batting, Aanshul Gupta 40, Soumik Chatterjee 33) vs. Haryana 248 in 89.5 overs (Shubham Rohilla 92, Joginder Sharma 46 n.o., Rajat Paliwal 33, Khalid Ahmad four for 86, Vikas Yadav four for 80)
At Kalyani: Kerala 306 in 102.1 overs (Sanju Samson 154, Jalaj Saxena 69, Samiullah Beigh six for 82, Ram Dayal three for 88) vs. Jammu & Kashmir 106 for five in 29 overs (Adil Reshi 40, Iqbal Abdullah three for 32)
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