Pacer Umar Nazir rose to the occasion and brought J&K back into the game with four crucial wickets to reduce hosts Haryana to 129 for the loss of five wickets in reply to J&K’s first inning total of 161 runs on the first day of Ranji Trophy match at Chaudhry Bansi Lal Cricket Stadium, Lahli on Friday.
At the end of first day’s play, Haryana were 129 with five wickets down in response to J&K’s first inning total of 161. They still trail J&K by 32 runs with five wickets in hand. Earlier, J&K were bundled out for 161 runs in their first inning after being put on to bat first on lively Lahli track. J&K batsmen failed completely with none of them able to score big.
Witnessing going down easily with Haryana openers putting up 46 run stand for the first wicket, it was Umar Nazir who brought them back into the game. He bagged two quick wickets to leave hosts on 59 for the loss of two wickets. After that, there was 59-run partnership between CK Bishnoi and RP Sharma to take hosts total to 112 runs. Umar returned back and gave J&K another two wickets. At the fag end of the day, Mohammad Mudhasir joined in by getting his first and fifth wicket for J&K.
The pace duo of J&K have sent top five order batsman of Haryana back in the pavilion, thus giving their team hope of coming back into game. For Haryana RP Sharma top scored with 41 and he was clean bowled by Umar while as HJ Rana who trapped lbw by Umar scored 29. Ankit Kumar scored 27 while as CK Bishnoi 20. Pramod Chadilia scored only four as he was clean bowled by Mudhasir.
Earlier, Haryana won the toss and invited J&K to bat first on the track that is known to favor pacers. J&K’s opening duo – Ahmad Banday and Shubham Khajuria gave a quick start to the team, scoring 27 runs in 6.5 overs. On the last ball of the seventh over Shubham Khajuria became first wicket to fall in J&K inning scoring only seven runs. He was trapped lbw by AK Chahal. Banday soon followed after scoring 22 with J&K score on 31. Ian Dev and Owais Shah, who was given a game to play after being on sidelines for long, tried to steady the ship. They took score to 65 run total. Owais Shah was third wicket to fall, as he was trapped lbw by HV Patel. Owais scored 21 runs. Parvez joined Ian in the middle and took score to 94 runs. Ian Dev was fifth wicket to fall after scoring 23 and Parvez Rasool too followed him. Pranav Gupta who was included in the side got out cheaply. Obaiad Haroon and Irfan Pathan tried to carry on the inning but Pathan got out after scoring 18. Obaid Haroon got out after scoring 26. Mohammad Mudhasir was ninth wicket to fall while as Akaash Chowdhary was last wicket to get out in J&K inning.
For J&K, Obaid top scored with 26 runs while as Ian Dev scored 23. For Haryana, Yuzvendra Chahal and AK Chahal took three wickets each while as AH Hooda and HV Patel took two wickets each. It was the situation wherein all J&K batsmen got starts but none could convert that into big score.
J&K, for the match had brought in Owais Shah, Pranav Gupta and Obaid Haroon in place of Shubham Pundir, Paras Sharma and Fazil Rashid.
BRIEF SCORES:
J&K: 161/10 ( Obaid 26, Ian Dev 23, Y Chahal 3-wkts)
Haryana: 129/5 (Sharma 41, Rana 29, Umar 4-wkts) trail by 32 runs