LONDON: If you look at the history of the Ranji Trophy, Mumbai have won the coveted title the most number of times and have a psychological edge over many teams, with Tamil Nadu being one of them.
As far as Tamil Nadu are concerned, from time immemorial they have been suffering from ‘Mumbai phobia’. And it was evident on Day 1 of their Elite Group B match of the Ranji Trophy at the Brabourne Stadium on Tuesday as the Ajinkya Rahane-led side bundled them out for 144 in just 36.2 overs. In reply, Mumbai were 183 for 6 and have a 39-run lead over the visitors. As many as 16 wickets fell on the first day.
Asked to bat, Tamil Nadu had a disastrous start. Mumbai pacers Tushar Deshpande and Mohit Avasthi made the most of the seamer-friendly surface as the Baba Indrajith-led side lost three wickets inside the first seven overs with just 20 runs on the board. Mohit Avasthi struck in the very second over of the morning removing in-form Sai Sudharsan for a blob. Only a few minutes later, R Sai Kishore got run out which meant Tamil Nadu were reeling at 5/2 after three overs. Though N Jagadeesan and Aparajith tried steadying the ship, Deshpande rattled the latter’s middle stump to the delight of his teammates. Soon skipper Indrajith too perished and Tamil Nadu were in dire straits at 44 for 4. Deshpande with 5/37 was the pick of the bowlers for Mumbai.
For Tamil Nadu, Pradosh Ranjan Paul was the only one to show some pluck to make a valuable 55. Pradosh was watchful and played to the merit of the ball and was thus successful. “Happy to get some runs against my name. It came at a crucial time and pleased that it was helpful for the team. I just played to the merit of the ball and was watchful and this enabled me to counter the Mumbai attack. Plus the century I got in the previous game me a lot of confidence to play the Mumbai seamers effectively,’’ said Pradosh.
Mumbai too had a jittery start as debutant H Trilok Nag dismissed Yashasvi Jaiswal and Arman Jaffer early. Coming in as a replacement for Sandeep Warrier, who is down with a fever, Trilok made the best use of the opportunity.
Select scores
Group B: At Rajkot: Delhi 133 in 35 ovs (Shokeen 68 n.o, Vashisht 38; Unadkat 8/39) vs Saurashstra 184/1 in 46 ovs (Desai 104 n.o, Jani 44 n.o); At Vizianagaram: Andhra 135 (Abhishek 81; Ravi Teja 5/34, Kartikeya 3/31) vs Hyderabad 79/3 in 30 ovs; At Mumbai: Tamil Nadu 144 in 36.2 ovs (Pradosh 55; Tushar 5/37) vs Mumbai 183/6 in 41 ovs (Prithvi 35, Rahane 42, Sarfaraz 46 n.o; Crist 3/32). Group C: At Bengaluru: Chattisgarh 267/6 in 90 ovs (Ashutosh 118 batting, Amandeep 93; Vidwath 3/54) vs Karnataka; At Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala 247/5 in 90 ovs (Rohan Prem 112 batting, Sachin Baby 46) vs Goa; At Delhi: Pondicherry 216 all out in 62.4 ovs (Arun Karthick 58, Dogra 38, Diwesh 3/39) vs Services 64/0 in 15 ovs (Rahul 40 batting).