Ranji Trophy 2024-25: Batsmen fail again, Delhi trails Assam by 116 runs

The team struggled to post 214 for six after players like Yash Dhull and Himmat Singh failed to convert their starts into big innings in the Ranji Trophy match against Assam in New Delhi on Sunday. Moving on from their overnight score of 264 for six, Assam's first innings ended on 330, with wicketkeeper Sumit Ghadigaonkar making 162 off 237 balls. Ghadigaonkar reached 120 runs overnight after seeing his teammates amazed by the excellent bowling of Harshit Rana. Delhi has scored 214 runs for six wickets till stumps on the second day and is 116 runs behind Assam.

After receiving his first Test call-up, Rana finished Assam's innings with impressive figures of 5/80 in 19.3 overs with the wicket of Mrinmoy Dutta.

When it came to bat, Delhi lost Gagan Vats for duck, but Sanat Sangwan (47 off 88 balls) and Dhull (47 off 44 balls) carried the innings forward by adding 66 runs for the second wicket.

Dhull's wicket signaled the arrival of captain Himmat, who added 81 runs for the third wicket with Sangwan before Sangwan was out LBW.

Even after Sangwan returned to the pavilion, Himmat looked determined to play a long innings, but nine runs later, Assam's experienced off-spinner Swaroopam Purkayastha dashed his hopes by dismissing the batsman for 55 off 88 balls.

Purkayastha was Assam's best bowler on the day with figures of 3/46 from 17 overs, while left-arm spinner Rahul Singh took 2/32 in the Group D match.

Delhi were in all sorts of trouble at 182 for six when Rahul trapped wicketkeeper Pranab Rajuvanshi in front of the wicket. But Sumit Mathur (19 batting) and Rana (15 batting) ensured there were no further casualties for the home team by the end of the second day's play.

At Delhi: Assam 330 (Sibsankar Roy 59, Sumit Ghadigaonkar 162; Harshit Rana 5/80) beat Delhi 214-6 (Himmat Singh 55; Swaroopam Purkayastha 3/46) by 116 runs.

At Jamshedpur: Jharkhand 202 (Anukul Roy 61; Jagjit Singh 3/32, Vishu Kashyap 3/64) beat Chandigarh 34-0 (Shivam Bhambri 23 batting) by 168 runs.

At Coimbatore: Chhattisgarh 500 (Ayush Pandey 124, Anuj Tiwari 84, Sanjeet Desai 82, Eknath Kerkar 52, Ajay Mondal 64; Ajit Ram 4/132) ahead of Tamil Nadu 23-1 (Ajit Ram 10 batting; Jeevesh Batte 1/5) By 477 runs.

At Rajkot: Railways 234 and 122-7 (Shivam Choudhary 35; Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 3/40, Yuvrajsingh Dodiya 3/50) beat Saurashtra 196 (Prerak Mankad 52; Karn Sharma 4/38) by 160 runs.

Samarth hundred guides Uttarakhand to 242/7

Captain Ravikumar Samarth led Uttarakhand with a brilliant century before Vidarbha led by two wickets at the end of the second day of play in the Ranji Trophy Group B match in Dehradun on Sunday.

In reply to Vidarbha's first innings score of 326, Uttarakhand managed to score 242 for seven at stumps thanks to Samarth's 119 runs off 241 balls.

However, despite Samarth's century, the home team fell behind Vidarbha by 84 runs.

Samarth, 31, who left Karnataka to play for Uttarakhand this season, used his years of experience in first-class cricket to keep his team in the game against last season's runners-up.

Samarth, who came here with a reputation of being fluent in the top order, hit 12 fours in the middle order, which helped his team stay in the game.

The problem in Uttarakhand's innings was that Samarth did not get enough support at the other end.

Kunal Chandela (19), Yuvraj Chaudhary (28) and Swapnil Singh (27) got starts but could not convert them into big scores. Even opener Avneesh Sudha had his sights set on it, but was out after scoring 30 runs in 45 balls.

Veteran off-spinner Akshay Wakhare, 39, was the pick of the day for Vidarbha, taking 3 for 47 in 17 overs, while Aditya Thackeray got two wickets.

At the time of stumps, Mayank Mishra and Abhay Negi were batting at 1 and 2 respectively.

At Dehradun: Vidarbha all out for 326 in 88 overs (Dhruv Shorey 35, Danish Malewar 56, Yash Rathod 135; Mayank Mishra 3/72, Avnish Sudha 2/35, Swapnil Singh 2/70) vs Uttarakhand 242/7 in 87 overs. 7 (Ravikumar Samarth 119; Akshay Wakhare 3/47)

At Visakhapatnam: Andhra all out for 344 in 92.4 overs (Shake Rashid 69, Hanuma Vihari 66, Srikar Bharat 65; Rishi Dhawan 3/80, Divesh Sharma 5/60) vs Himachal Pradesh 198/4 in 65 overs (Ankit Kalsi 53 , sky) Vashishtha 52; KV Shashikant 3/50).

At Jaipur: Gujarat all out for 335 in 97.4 overs (Priyank Panchal 110, Arya Desai 86, Jaymeet Patel 61, Umang Kumar 41; Arafat Khan 4/50, Kukna Ajay Singh 3/102) vs Rajasthan 180/5 in 69 overs. (Abhijeet) Tomar 77; Jaymeet Patel 3/77).

At Hyderabad: Hyderabad declared 536/8 in 163 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 173, Abhirath Reddy 68, Rohit Rayudu 84, Kodimela Himateja 60, Tanay Thiagarajan 53; Ankit Sharma 3/117, Satish Jangid 2/72) vs Puducherry 24 /2 12 overs.