Chhatisgarh's Ayush Pandey produced a brilliant hundred in the second innings to thwart Mumbai's hopes of an outright victory in their Ranji Trophy Elite Group D match at the Bandra-Kurla Complex Mumbai Cricket Association (BKC-MCA) Ground on Tuesday.
After putting on 416 in their first innings, Mumbai skittled out the visitors for 217 and then asked them to follow on hoping for an outright victory, if not an innings win.
However, young Ayush had different ideas as he clinically went about disrupting Mumbai bowlers' plans with his strong defence and fluent strokeplay.
With 17 fours and a six, the 22-year-old tormented the home team bowlers and especially the spinners and more in the second session of the day.
Chhatisgarh scored 122 runs in the second session with at a run-rate of 4.28 losing just one wicket to consolidate the 99 runs scored in the first session.
Although, just 23 runs came in the third and final session of the day, Chhatisgarh had by then successfully ensured that they had safely negotiated the Mumbai attack to claim one point as against the home side's three.
At 201/3 in 58 overs, the visitors had ensured they resisted Mumbai's charge of an outright win after their spinners had made a huge impact in the game in the first innings.
Sanjeet Desai's 26 and skipper Amandeep Khare's 25 were the supporting acts that helped Chhatisgarh's cause.
Starting the day at 175/6, Chhatisgarh could not add just 42 runs while losing the four remaining wickets. The Mumbai bowlers led by Shams Mulani ran riot over the visiting batters cleaning them up in no time.
Mulani starred with 5/59 while Himanshu Singh chipped in with a 3/42 and young Musheer Khan scalping two wickets as well. The Mumbai team management would be mighty pleased with the efforts of the spinners led by Mulani.
The trio rocked Chhattisgarh with their guile and craft bamboozling batters at regular intervals. If Ajinkya Rahane's daddy hundred and Siddhesh Lad's half-century powered Mumbai batting in the first innings, the spinners completely took charge thereafter.
Following on Chhattisgarh were a lot more solid as they made the Mumbai batters work hard for each and every run. Ayush Pandey was thwarting the Mumbai bowling attack with his dodgy yet effective batting technique.
Group D: Brief Scores:
Delhi 430 and 209/4 decl (Yash Dhull 70, Ayush Doseja 64); Himachal Pradesh 297 and 168/2 (Ankush Bains 81 no, Pukhraj Mann 76 no).
Points: Delhi 3; HP 1.
In Mumbai: Mumbai 416; Chhattisgarh 217 (Ayush Pandey 50, Shams Mulani 5/59) and (f/o) 201/3 (Ayush Pandey 117). Points: Mumbai 3; Chhattisgarh 1.
In Puducherry: Hyderabad 435; Puducherry 126 (Tanay Thyagarajan 4/48) and (f/o) 97/5 (Tanay Thyagarajan 2/35). Points: Hyderabad 3; Puducherry 1.
