Title - Railways takes first innings lead

Railways stayed on course to achieve its first objective of taking the vital first innings lead scoring 145 for two in reply to Hyderabad’s first innings score of 337 at close of play on the second day of the four-day Ranji Trophy Group ‘A’ match at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on Sunday. Earlier, resuming at its overnight score of 247 for six, the home team added 90 runs, losing the last four wickets half-an-hour before lunch, thanks to the impressive Ashish Reddy (82, 119 balls, 8x4, 2x6) who continued to bat with great freedom.Railways got an early breakthrough when Anureet Singh trapped Amol Shinde lbw in the third over of the day. Then it ran into a gritty Ashish. However, just when he looked good for his maiden Ranji century, he got out going for a heave over square-leg off leg-spinner Karan Sharma without getting to the pitch of the ball. Akash Bhandari scored a breezy half-century (56 not out, 89 balls, 9x4) to see Hyderabad post a total which, at one stage, looked out of reach.In reply, Railways was off to a confident start with openers Shivakant Shukla and Amit Paunikar putting on 51 runs before India left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha got Shukla, who was on the back-foot to one which kept a trifle low.Ojha picked his second wicket to send back Paunikar, whose attempt to sweep ended in top-edging a simple catch to silly-point. But, the gritty Nitin Bhille (31) and his experienced captain Sanjay Bangar (43) put on an unbroken, 75- run stand for the third wicket. Hyderabad also had the misfortune of seeing its frontline spinner Ojha leave the field after bowling the first over after the tea break with discomfort in the right ankle. He came back briefly only to leave the field again with a slight limp but is expected to be fit tomorrow.

The scores: Hyderabad — 1st innings: K. Sumanth c (sub) Cheluvaraj b Karan 45, P.A. Reddy c Shukla b Bangar 15, G.H. Vihari b Karan 1, B. Sandeep b Kartik 68, A. Quadri b Shukla 27, S. Rajan b Kartik 1, Ashish Reddy b Karan 82, A. Shinde lbw b Anureet 30, A. Bhandari not out 56, P. Ojha lbw b Kartik 6, A. Ahmed b Kartik 1, Extras (lb-4, nb-1) 5; Total (in 122 overs) 337.

Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-29, 3-91, 4-158, 5-160, 6-160, 7-252, 8-300, 9-311.

Railways bowling: Kartik 36-10-88-4, Rathod 17-4-44-0, Anureet 19-3-49-1, Bangar 14-5-28-1, Karan Sharma 29-4-103-3, Suresh 3-0-13-0, Shukla 4-1-8-1.

Railways — 1{+s}{+t}innings: S.S. Shukla lbw b Ojha 24, A. Paunikar c Rajan b Ojha 41, N.S. Bhille batting 31, S. Bangar batting 43, Extras (b-4, nb-1, w-1) 6; Total (for two wickets in 59 overs) 145.

Fall of wickets: 1-51, 2-70.

Hyderabad bowling: Anwar 8-1-32-0, Ashish 8-2-22-0, Ojha 13-6-17-2, Shinde 23-8-57-0, Bhandari 7-2-13-0.

Other scores: Round eight, day two:

Group ‘A’: At Indore: Mumbai 304 in 112.2 overs (Kaustubh Pawar 111 n.o, Aditya Tare 42, Ankeet Chavan 44, Ishwar Pandey six for 54) vs. Madhya Pradesh 191 for five in 60 overs (Satyam Choudhary 73 n.o).

At Valsad: Gujarat 266 in 93.2 overs (Samit Gohel 41, Manprit Juneja 42, Jesal Karia 40, Rush Kalaria 40, Sandeep Sharma four for 40) vs. Punjab 227 for seven in 83 overs (Mayank Sidhana 50, Mandeep Singh 66, Uday Kaul 63 n.o).

At Jaipur: Rajasthan 299 in 93.5 overs (Vineet Saxena 71, Ashok Menaria 103, Dishant Yagnik 46) vs. Saurashtra 213 for seven in 76 overs (Sheldon Jackson 54, Kamlesh Makvana 54 n.o).

Group ‘B’: At Hubli: Haryana 587 for nine decl. in 176.4 overs (Sunny Singh 56, Amit Mishra 202 n.o, Jayant Yadav 211) vs. Karnataka 11 for no loss in one over.

At Pune: Baroda 362 in 130.4 overs (Saurabh Wakaskar 50, Aditya Waghmode 113, Kedar Devdhar 104, Shrikant Mundhe four for 72) vs. Maharashtra 131 for three in 45 overs (Harshad Khadiwale 69 n.o).

At Cuttack: Vidarbha 206 in 93.5 overs (Hemang Badani 40, Gaurav Upadhyaya 40) & 64 for two in 30 overs vs. Odisha 121 in 50.2 overs (Sandeep Singh four for 39).

At Chennai: Uttar Pradesh 392 in 128.5 overs (Mohammad Kaif 68, Prashant Gupta 57, Ali Murtaza 106, Malolan Rangarajan four for 107) vs. Tamil Nadu 149 for six in 57 overs (Murali Vijay 42, Ali Murtaza four for 65).

Group ‘C’: At Jammu: Jammu & Kashmir 175 & 16 for three in nine overs vs. Himachal Pradesh 189 in 80.2 overs (Aatish Bhalaik 40, Ram Dayal six for 50).

At Guwahati: Andhra 249 in 89.5 overs (Bodapati Sumanth 57, Amol Muzumdar 108 n.o, Arup Das four for 61) vs. Assam 166 for two in 69 overs (Pallavkumar Das 49, Sibsankar Roy 72 n.o).

At Malappuram: Jharkhand 120 & 37 for two in 13.1 overs vs. Kerala 325 in 128.5 overs (Vasudevan Jagadeesh 138, Robert Fernandez 111, Shahbaz Nadeem four for 90).

At Agartala: Tripura 170 for five in 58 overs (Abbas Ali 44, Abhijit Dey 75 n.o) vs. Goa. Toss: Goa .