Baroda stage strong fightback

Champions Baroda staged a fine fightback after being dismissed by Punjab for 222 in their first innings in the Ranji Trophy semi-final, in Baroda, on Wednesday.

At close, on the opening day of the match, the hosts had reduced Punjab to 95 for 4, off 25 overs, in their first innings.

The visitors would have been in a more precarious situation had Dinesh Mongia (batting 36) and skipper Vikram Rathore (batting 16) not stemmed the collapse with a 56-run fifth wicket stand.

Young paceman Zaheer Khan, who helped Baroda move into the semi-finals by bagging five Hyderabad scalps in each innings in the quarter-finals, repeated his steller performance when he sent Punjab openers Ravneet Ricky (0), Munish Sharma (24) and one-down bat Yuvraj Singh (5) back to the pavilion with Punjab's score reading 39. At the end of the day his figures read 10-1-42-3.

Earlier, having won the toss and electing to bat first, Baroda made a disastrous start, as six of their top order batsmen -- Connor Williams (13), Sudeep Kale (13), Nayan Mongia (29), skipper Jacob Martin (7), Tushar Arothe (14) and Atul Bedade (5) fell cheaply by lunch, with the score reading 95, on a wicket considered batting friendly.

However, young Ajit Bhoite made a brilliant 85 off 103 balls and put on 66 runs for the last wicket with Sekhar Joshi (not out 6) to give Baroda's score some respectability. His breezy 125-minute knock had 11 boundaries and four towering sixes.

Baroda's innings folded in 64.2 overs, eight minutes before the scheduled tea time, as Bhoite fell to Punjab left-arm spinner Navdeep Singh, caught by Rathore.

Harbhajan Singh (4 for 68) and seamer Amin Uniyal (3 for 77) did the bulk of the damage.