CHENNAI: Left-arm spinner Ajith Ram’s 4 for 44 came in handy for Tamil Nadu to restrict Railways to 229 in 80.2 overs on the first day of the Ranji Trophy fixture played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Wednesday. In reply, Tamil Nadu were 19 for no loss in three overs at the stumps.
Ajith Ram who was drafted into the side in place of injured Sai Kishore gave a good account of himself and rose to the challenge. The genial spinner has made it a habit to deliver whenever he could play in the eleven.
‘’Pleased with the way our team performed to restrict Railways just above 200 runs. First Gurjapneet exploited the conditions and gave us the breakthrough. Then I managed to get some purchase. I was bowling with a good rhythm and went about with the flow of the game. Pleased to contribute to the team,’’ said Ajith Ram to Express after the game.
Put into bat Railways lost its openers Pratham Singh and Vivek Singh cheaply. Both fell to left-arm medium pacer Gurjapneet. The pacer used the conditions in the morning session to his benefit. He bowed a lovely line and length and hit the deck in the right areas to trouble the Railways openers. He got the required arc and movement to induce the Railways openers to commit mistakes.
After that, Suraj Ahuja (52) and Mohammed Saif (60) combined admirably by being judicious in their shot selection to stitch a 98-run stand for the third wicket. The duo played to the merit of the ball avoided risks and showed a good temperament. The Tamil Nadu skipper, N Jagadeesan shuffled his bowlers and kept the pace-spin combination going at times. When the pair of Ahuja and Saif threatened to post a big stand Ajith Ram gave the breakthrough as he deceived Ahuja with his flight. This wicket had a ripple effect as Railways lost a couple of wickets.
‘’The wicket was not that difficult to play. In the morning there was something for the medium pacers and then it slowly settled down,’’ added Ajith Ram. ‘’I was bowling wicket to wicket with subtle variations to Ahuja and thus could beat and castle him. On this wicket, one needs to bowl tight lines in order to get purchase and that’s what our bowlers did,’’ he mentioned. After that Bargav Merai waged a lone battle to make 53 runs and was instrumental in Railways breaching the 200-run mark.
Select scores
Group A: In Cuttack: Maharashtra 162 in 54 ovs (Ramakrishna Ghosh 80; Sumit Sharma 4/39, Govinda Poddar 3/10) vs Odisha 99/1 in 34 ovs (Swastik Samal 56 batting, Sandeep Pattnaik 41 batting). Group B: In Dharamsala: Puducherry 85 in 34 ovs (Vinay Galetiya 3/24, Mukul Negi 3/8, Rishi Dhawan 2/13, Vaibhav Arora 2/16) vs Himachal Pradesh 147/2 in 41 ovs (Shubham Arora 58); In Hyderabad: Hyderabad 244/5 in 90 ovs (Tanmay Agarwal 124 batting; Tripurana Vijay 3/85) vs Andhra. Group C: In Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh 89 in 40.3 ovs (Vasuki Koushik 5/20, Vidyadhar Patil 2/22) vs Karnataka 127/5 in 31 ovs (Krishnan Shrijith 68 batting, Shivam Mavi 2/52, Aaqib Khan 2/31); In Rohtak: Kerala 138/1 in 54 ovs (Rohan Kunnummal 55, Akshay Chandran 51 batting; Anshul Kamboj 2/25) Group D: In Delhi: Jharkhand 136/3 in 55 ovs (Sharandeep Singh 64 batting, Utkarsh Singh 46) vs Delhi; In Ahmedabad: Railways 229 in 80.2 ovs (Suraj Ahuja 52, Mohammad Saif 60, Bhargav Merai 53; Ajith Ram 4/44, Gurjapneet Singh 2/36, Sonu Yadav 2/33, Lakshay Jain 2/41) vs Tamil Nadu 19/0 in 3 ovs.