Powar, Bahutule spin Mumbai to victory

Off-spinner Ramesh Powar and leg spinner Sairaj Bahutule bowled Mumbai to a seven-wicket victory over Maharashtra in the West Zone Ranji Trophy league match in Bombay on Saturday.

Powar bagged six wickets for 30 runs while Bahutule claimed two for 23 as Maharashtra were bowled out for 98 in their second innings and the former champions won with a day to spare.

Mumbai, who were 220 for eight overnight in their first innings, added another 30 runs before losing their last two wickets.

Nilesh Kulkarni made a useful 40 and last-man Avishkar Salvi was unbeaten on nine.

The hosts took a 34-run first innings lead as the visitors were all out for 216.

Maharashtra seamer Iqbal Siddique took both the wickets to fall on Saturday to finish with superb figures of seven for 91.

With Powar and Bahutule bowling in tandem, the Maharashtra batsmen caved in meekly in their second innings, with only opening batsmen Dheeraj Jadhav (40, 3x4) and Niranjan Godbole (24, 4x4) putting some sort of resistance.

Chasing 65 for an outright win, Mumbai lost the wickets of opener Vinayak Mane (10), Sameer Dighe (6) and southpaw Vinod Kambli (6) before middle-order batsmen Amol Muzumdar (37 not out) and Kunal More (4 not out) rattled off the required runs.

Siddique again picking two of the three wickets to fall.

With the victory, Mumbai have eight points while Maharashtra are yet to open their account.

Assam comfortably placed against Bihar

Assam were comfortably placed at 110 for the loss of two wickets in their second innings after gaining a 133-run first innings lead against Bihar on the penultimate day of the four-day East Zone Ranji trophy tie in Jamshedpur on Saturday.

Resuming at their overnight score of 128 for three, Bihar were helped to a respectable total of 301 by a 62-run fourth wicket stand between skipper Rajiv Kumar (30) and Tariqur Rahman (62), followed by a 63-run ninth wicket partnerhip between Manish Kumar (50) and Mihir Diwakar (6).

Assam had made 434 in their first innings.

A six-wicket haul (6/103) by off-spinner Ganesh Kumar restricted Bihar and he was ably supported by Gokul Krishna (2/72) and Sukhvinder Singh (2/47).

Assam got off to a flying start in their second innings as openers P Das (39) and skipper S Saikia (48) scored 73 runs before left-arm spinner Sahid Khan forced Das to edge a simple catch to Mihir Diwakar.

Khan struck again within a gap of five overs, claiming Saikia (48) caught by S S Rao. The skipper's knock had eight hits to the fence.

At close, Z Zuffri was batting on 12 while Ganesh Kumar was on 10.

Hyderabad get five points against Karnataka

Hosts Hyderabad bagged five points by virtue of their first innings lead against Karnataka in the four-day Ranji Trophy cricket match, which ended in a draw on Saturday.

Hyderabad, who packed off Karnataka for 416, were 64 for two at close. The hosts had earlier piled up 577 in their first innings.

For Karnataka overnight batsmen Tilak Naidu scored 101, while Shivaji Yadav (4/106) and Arjun Yadav (3/25) were the main wreckers of the visitors' innings.

While Hyderabad got five points from the match, Karnataka received three points.

Brief Scores: Hyderabad: 577 and 64 for 2; Karnataka: 416.

Delhi struggle as Vijay Sharma scalps five

Jammu and Kashmir skipper Vijay Sharma grabbed five crucial wickets as formidable Delhi struggled to reach 204 for nine at close on the first day of the North Zone Ranji Trophy league match in Delhi on Saturday.

Put into bat, the Delhi batsmen had no clue to the pace and bounce extracted by Vijay and were reduced to 15 for three by the eighth over.

The hosts rallied strongly through a 107-run fourth wicket partnership between Akash Chopra (71) and Sohail Rauf (56), but only till Vijay came back with more fire. He scalped two more victims and J and K off-spinner Ashwini Gupta triggered another collapse down the order takiquick wickets.

The J and K bowlers troubled the Delhi batsmen from the beginning and they got the first breakthrough in the sixth over as opener Varun Kumar was castled by a yorker from Vijay.

Vijay dismissed two more in his next over, sending back stylish Pradeep Chawla (0) and captain Mithun Manhas (2) to leave the hosts tottering at 15 for three.

While wicketkeeper Arshad Bhat took a stunning catch to dismiss Chawla, Manhas snicked one to Ashwani Gupta at first slip.

Chopra stuck to his end and was joined by Rauf, who after surviving some anxious moments settled down with the former to lead a recovery act. Both batsmen played sensible cricket and chose occasional loose balls to dispatch to the boundary.

Orissa defeat Tripura by innings and 127 runs

Last season's semi-finalists Orissa began their Ranji trophy campaign in style, inflicting an innings and 127-run victory over Tripura on the third day of their four-day East Zone Ranji Trophy match at the Lal Bahadur stadium in Bhawanipatna, Orissa, on Saturday.

Required to make 321 runs to make Orissa bat again, the visitors crumbled for 193 in their second innings in the face of sustained pressure applied by the home bowlers.

This is the third straight time when Orissa have defeated Tripura by an innings.

Left arm spinner Jagannath Das claimed three wickets for 48 runs while speedster Debasish Mohanty (2 for 31) and off- spinner Sanjay Satpathy (2 for 67) shared the spoils.

Resuming at their overnight total of 471 for nine, Orissa were bowled out after adding just one run to their score on Saturday morning.

Facing an uphill task, Tripura lost wickets at regular intervals to be 78 for five at one stage. Subal Choudhury (57), all rounder Timir Chanda (46), Rajiv Dutta (26) and Chetan Sachdeva (24) were the only batsmen who provided some respectability to the Tripura second innings total.

The match ended just after the tea interval.

Choudhury, who batted for 138 minutes, hit eight fours and a six while Chanda had seven boundaries in his knock.

Parida bags 8 wickets to restrict MP

A career-best eight-wicket haul by off-spinner Kulmani Parida of Railways restricted Madhya Pradesh to 274 despite a century by Devendra Bundela (111 not out) in their first innings on the third day of Central Zone Ranji Trophy cricket league match in Indore on Saturday.

Railways had made 496 in their first innings.

Resuming at their overnight score of 152 for three, the fourth MP wicket fell at 176, when Nikhil Patwardhan (34) was out leg before to Parida.

Parida then claimed the wickets of Jatin Saxena (0), rival skipper Sulakshan Kulkarni (7), Sanjay Pande (12), Yogesh Golwalkar (4) and Ambalal Patidar (10).

Shreyas Khanolkar took the wicket of Manish Majithia (5), when he had him caught by Tejinder Pal Singh.

Parida bowled an excellent spell of 41.5 overs, including 21 maidens, giving just 65 runs for a haul of eight wickets.

Devinder Bundela, who remained not out hit 111, made the only notable contribution for MP.

Railways began their second innings on a confident note, with openers J P Yadav and Amit Pagnis adding 162 runs for the opening wicket.

However, Jatin Saxena again struck in his very first over as he did in the first innings to dismiss J P Yadav (92).

Pagnis, 63, and Goud (0), were at the crease at close.

Mail Cricket Editor