Rest wrest initiative; Kartik strikes

Murli Kartik had the Bombay batsmen in a spin as the Rest of India took a firm grip on their Irani Trophy match, dismissing five batsmen for just 145 runs after taking a 120-run first innings lead, by close of play on the third day at the Wankhede Stadium.

Bombay lead by just 25 runs with their top five batsmen back in the hut with the exception of Amol Muzumdar.

The Bombay batsmen just did not have an answer to the left-arm spinner who captured all the five wickets to fall on Sunday taking his match tally to nine wickets.

Kartik bowled an unchanged spell from the Tata end, from where he had captured his first-innings wickets, to end the day with figures of five for 58 off 18 overs.

The Bombay opening pair started off promisingly as in the first innings, putting on 89 runs for the first wicket and giving the team some hope of making a match of it.

Wasim Jaffer was looking good, executing some brilliant shots all round the wicket. He was especially severe on Laxmi Ratan Shukla, starting off with an on-drive and then hitting him for two fours in a single over; both superbly timed off-drives which went like bullets to the fence.

At the other end Vinayak Mane was looking more composed than in the first innings, tackling the seamers without much difficulty and picking up the singles and twos with the odd boundary.

But after tea, with the advent of the spinners, Mane fell in Kartik's sixth over playing uppishly to mid-on where Sarandeep Singh took a good diving catch.

Jaffer at the other end was looking set for a real big innings after his disappointment of the first innings when he got out after reaching his fifty. But he failed again to do justice to Bombay as well as to himself. After reaching his fifty off 80 balls with 11 hits to the fence, he fell trying to play across the line to Kartik to get an outside edge which ballooned on the offside for Ashish Nehra to come in from mid-off and take a simple catch.

Kiran Powar was the next to go just as he seemed to get a measure of the Rest bowling, hitting Kartik for two consecutive fours with a sweep and a cover drive. Kartik, however, got his revenge when he had Powar lunging forward for Mohammed Kaif to take a good diving catch at forward short leg. Powar was unhappy with the decision and gesticulated at the umpire before leaving the wicket.

The other debutant of the Bombay team, Nishit Shetty, also did not last long pushing forward to a Kartik delivery for Jacob Martin to gobble up the catch at silly point. At this stage Bombay were 123 for four still needing six runs to make the Rest of India bat again and their last recognised battting pair in captain Sameer Dighe and vice-captain Amol Mazumdar at the crease.

Bombay plunged further into trouble when Dighe played forward as the ball from Kartik turned to take the outside edge and skipper V V S Laxman running from first slip took an easy catch at gully. Dighe had made just four, and the Bombay total was 135 for five.

Mazumdar along with Paras Mhambrey avoided further embarrassment for Bombay, playing out the remaining 6.4 overs to end the day on 145 for five. Mazumdar is unbeaten on 21 and Mhambrey on two.

Earlier in the morning, Santosh Saxena, bowling an inspired spell, brought Bombay back into the reckoning capturing the two important wickets of overnight batsmen Laxman and Martin while giving away just 18 runs in ten overs.

Laxman was the first to go after adding just two to his overnight score of 165 when he edged a delivery from Saxena to second slip where Mazumdar took an easy catch.

Martin was the next to depart soon after reaching his fifty when he was bowled by Saxena, missing the line of the ball to see his furniture rearranged.

After Saxena's opening spell, left arm spinner Nilesh Kulkarni got into the act getting rid of Ajay Ratra and Laxmi Ratan Shukla cheaply to reduce Rest of India to 349 for eight. At this stage Bombay looked like restricting the Rest to a lead of less than hundred runs.

However, a rollicking ninth wicket partnership of 40 runs between Dodda Ganesh and Sarandeep Singh swelled the Rest total to 389 with Sarandeep using the long handle to good effect hammering four fours in his 26. Ganesh remained unbeaten on 13.

UNI

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