GROUP b
Mullanpur, Oct 18: India skipper Shubman Gill’s return to domestic cricket lasted only five balls, but Punjab captain Uday Saharan’s unbeaten 106 led the hosts to 269 for four against Chhattisgarh on Day 1 of their Ranji Trophy Elite Group B match here on Sunday.
Opting to bat first, Punjab made a solid beginning reaching 55 for no loss through openers Vihaan Malhotra and Harnoor Singh.
But both Malhotra and Harnoor departed in the space of 10 runs, as Punjab slipped to 65 for two.
However, an even bigger blow was waiting for them. Gill, who is playing the red ball games ahead of the tour of New Zealand, could not negate left-arm spinner Ajay Mandal.
Mandal’s delivery that came in with the arm beat the forward defence of Gill (1) to rearrange his stumps. Punjab were 68 for three then.But they found a saviour in Saharan, who played a mature knock of 179 balls, including 13 fours.
He found an able ally in Prabhsimran Singh (62, 133b) and the duo milked 130 runs for the fourth wicket to take Punjab close to 200.
Prabhsimran fell to spinner Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, but Saharan stitched a 71-run stand for the unbeaten fifth wicket with Salil Arora (38 batting) to see the remainder of the day off.
Manvanth saves Karnataka
Manvanth Kumar, playing in his second first-class game, made an unbeaten 86 as Karnataka recovered from early blows to reach 281 for eight against long-time nemesis Saurashtra at Alur.
Karnataka were 194 for eight at one stage, but Manvanth and Abhilash Shetty (6 batting) added 81 runs for the ninth wicket to rescue them from a full-blown implosion.
Brief scores
At Mullanpur: Punjab: 269/4 in 90 overs (Uday Saharan (106 batting, Prabhsimran Singh 61, Salil Arora 38 batting; Ajay Mandal 2/60) vs Chhattisgarh.
At Alur: Karnataka: 281/8 in 86 overs (Manvanth Kumar 86 batting, KV Aneesh 59, Karun Nair 46, Mayank Agarwal 42; Jaydev Unadkat 3/51, Parth Bhut 3/73) vs Saurashtra.
At Guwahati: Assam: 228/6 in 86 overs (Sibasankar Roy 54, Sumit Ghadigaonkar 49, Rishav Das 37; Sandip Sarkar 3/64) vs Tripura.
At Vijayawada: Hyderabad: 275 all out in 86 overs (Abhirath Reddy 67, Rahul Radesh 58 not out, Tanmay Agarwal 42; Tripurana Vijay 4/90, Saurabh Kumar 3/75, Lalith Mohan 3/78) vs Andhra: 9/0 in 2 overs. (PTI)