Srinagar: J&K bowlers were made to toil hard as Pondicherry ended day one of the Ranji Trophy match in strong position at SSN College Ground, Chennai on Thursday.
J&K after winning the toss invited Pondicherry to bat first. Pondicherry went on to post 309 runs for the loss of six wickets on first day.
After early success, J&K bowlers had to work hard as Pondicherry batsman went on to score big. A brilliant century of 106 runs by Paras Dogra laid the foundation of a big total for Pondicherry side.
At one point , J&K bowlers led by Umran Malik had reduced Pondicherry to 97 with four wickets down. However after that Paras formed a stand of 152 runs with S Karthik to take Pondicherry total to 249 runs. Paras was fifth wicket to fall after scoring 106 run knock.
They soon lost their sixth wicket in shape of Karthik on the score of 255. Karthik scored 63 runs. It was last wicket to fall during the day with Fabid Ahmed and Sagar Trivedi ensuring no further damage for Pondicherry. They ended day one on 309 for the loss of six wickets.
Fabid was batting on 32 while as Sagar was batting on 13. For J&K, Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer, Umran Malik was pick of the bowlers taking three wickets while as Parvez Rasool, Abdul Samad and Abid Mushtaq took one wicket each.
J&K would like to wrap up Pondicherry inning early on second days play and can not afford them to pile up big total as they have already crossed 300 run mark.
For J&K, Umran Malik made his first class debut today while as team is being captained by Ian Dev.
Team went with veteran pacer Ram Dayal in the match instead of rising star Mujtaba Yousuf.