Cheruvathur puts Kerala in driver's seat
A round-up of the first day's play of the third-round matches of the Ranji Trophy Plate League 2009-10
Cricinfo staff
17-Nov-2009
Sony Cheruvathur's 6 for 31 gave Kerala the ideal start at home against Rajasthan • ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Group B
Kerala 59 for 3 trail Jammu & Kashmir 164 (Cheruvathur 6-31) by 105 runs
Scorecard
Scorecard
Kerala took the upper hand against Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) after a superb bowling display from right-arm seamer Sony Cheruvathur at the Gandhi Memorial Science College in Jammu. Cheruvathur and fellow fast bowler Raiphi Gomez rattled the J&K batsmen, sharing nine wickets between them. Cheruvathur finished the day with a haul of six, as none of the home team batsmen could better Ian Dev Singh's 35 at the top. Kerala faltered as well, during the reply, after Abid Nabi had them floundering at 27 for 3 in the ninth over. But Sreekumar Nair and Sachin Baby fought back with an unbeaten partnership of 32.
Rain in Vijaywada curtailed the first day's play between Madhya Pradesh and Andhra to only 30 overs, at the end of which the visitors had reached 63 for 2. Play started on time and MP's openers, Naman Ojha and Jalaj Saxena, added 45 before Ojha was dismissed for 21 by Syed Sahabuddin. Saxena fell soon after, edging Sahabuddin to the wicketkeeper, with the score on 56. Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Devendra Bundela scored four each before play was washed out.
Group A
Jharkhand crawled in their first innings, after choosing to bat against Assam, reaching only 160 for 4 in 82 overs on the first day in Guwahati. Opener Siddhartha Sinha top scored with 89, but he played 252 deliveries and spent five hours at the crease to get there. His stodgy resistance came after Jharkhand had lost two early wickets and were 21 for 2 within the first ten overs. Sinha and his captain Saurabh Tiwary, who scored 35 off 98 balls, added 80 for the third wicket and Sinha added another 56 with Rajiv Kumar. Kumar was the slowest of them all, taking 126 balls to plod to 21 but he remained unbeaten at stumps. Sairaj Bahutule picked up 2 for 34 off 15 overs, an expensive economy-rate compared to Arlen Konwar's 1.07 (30 runs in 28 overs).
Swapnil Asnodkar shone for Goa with a well-compiled half-century against Rajasthan in Margao. The hosts started on the wrong foot though, after being put in, losing Sagun Kamat off the second ball of the day. Even as wickets fell regularly, Asnodkar braved all odds to grind out his fifty, hitting nine fours and a six en route. The unbeaten stand of 43 with Rahul Keni (26 not out) bode well for the hosts, even as 51 overs could be managed in the day.
There was no play on the first day between Vidarbha and Tripura in Nagpur because of rain. The weather was so bad that even the toss could not take place. Umpires S Ramakrishna and R Subramanian, after the third and final inspection at around 3.30 pm, called off play for the day.