da imperador bet： A wrap of the fourth day of the first round of Ranji Trophy matches in Group A
ESPNcricinfo staff05-Nov-2012
ScorecardBrothers in arms: Siddarth Kaul took five wickets and Uday took five catches to take Punjab to an innings win over Hyderabad•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Harbhajan Singh celebrated his return to Test squad with three wickets in an innings win over Hyderabad to secure full seven points for Punjab. Siddarth Kaul, who took three wickets on the third evening, added two more to end up with his second five-for in his fourth first-class match.Punjab began the day needing seven wickets for an innings win, and it was always going to come down to VVS Laxman. In opener Akshath Reddy’s company, Laxman thwarted Punjab for close to two hours, but once Reddy got out to Harbhajan, the floodgates opened.Siddarth Kaul accounted for Laxman, and the rest folded easily. It was another good day for the Kauls: Siddarth’s brother, Uday, took five catches.
ScorecardJalaj Saxena, who has been the offspinner on two India A tours now, might not have been picked for the Tests but pulled out an excellent rearguard with the bat to give Madhya Pradesh one point in what looked like a certain defeat. When Saxena came in to bat, MP were 179 for 6 despite Naman Ojha’s 64, and needed to bat 33.2 overs to save the match.Saxena drew support from Amit Sharma and Anand Rajan. The latter had also taken seven wickets in Gujarat’s first innings. With Amit, Saxena saw through close to 10 overs, but the partnership of the day came with Rajan. The two played out 24.3 overs to frustrate Gujarat, who couldn’t find a wicket-taker other than Rakesh Dhurv and Mehul Patel, who bowled 51 overs between them for seven wickets.While Saxena got a much-deserved half-century, Rajan stayed unbeaten on nine off 64 balls.
ScorecardWriddhiman Saha and Laxmi Shukla roughed it out through the testing period in the morning session to see Bengal through to safety and three points. Bengal made a declaration before lunch, but in a match punctuated by bad light there was never going to be enough time to force a result.Bengal began the day at 109 for 5, still needing a solid partnership to consolidate their 97-run first-innings lead, and they found it through Shukla and Saha. They added 55 for the sixth wicket, and Saha went on to score his second fifty of the match before Manoj Tiwary set Rajasthan a target of 330.Ashok Dinda provided Bengal with a good start with Ankit Lamba’s wicket, but the experience of Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Rashmi Parida was enough to see defending champions Rajasthan through to one point.
Scorecard
Railways began the day needing 41 runs to avoid the follow-on with two wickets in hand, and only an enforced follow-on could have kept the rest of the day interesting. As it turned out, Zaheer Khan, who had cramped up on day three according to captain Ajit Agarkar, didn’t even take the field, and Railways’ ninth-wicket stand of Krishnakant Upadhyay and Anureet Singh made sure they wouldn’t have to bat again.After that Kaustubh Pawar and Ajinkya Rahane scored 80s in glorified batting practice.