Patel redeems himself and the Rest

The impressive Rest of India batting order had been blown away by the Mumbai bowlers on the first morning of Irani Trophy match at the PCA Stadium but Parthiv was out to prove his mettle. His face-saving, unbeaten 56 not only took the Rest out of the troubled waters but also proved that the youngster can bat as well as any of his other competitors for the wicketkeeper-batsman slot in the Indian team.

‘‘I am not worried about my selection. Nor do I care about how the other keepers are doing. I always believe that my performance in Pakistan was much better in comparison to that in Australia. It feels good to score some runs,’’ Parthiv would say later.

Mumbai’s decision of putting Rest into bat fetched instant results as quickies Aavishkar Salvi and Robin Morris made early inroads. Aakash Chopra (9) may not have done his reputation any good by getting out cheaply but the Delhi lad was returning to active cricket after a long gap due to an injury.

‘‘It was very disappointing. I wanted to spend some time in the middle and get some runs but it is always challenging to face seamers on the first morning at Mohali,’’ Aakash said later.

Another failure came in the form of Dinesh Mongia who could add only four runs to his team’s total.

However, some gritty batting by Sridharan Sriram (77), Gautam Gambhir (39) and a strokeful 45 not out by Murali Karthik, who, along with Parthiv, pushed the run rate up in the last 10 overs of the day, put Rest back in the game.

‘‘We can only blame ourselves for the poor show in the latter part of the day. At 198/6, we should have bowled them out easily but our bowlers didn’t bowl as per expectations,’’ remarked Chandrakant Pandit, coach of the Mumbai team.

Earlier, Mumbai’s express bowler Munaf Patel suffered a shoulder injury when he fell on the follow-through of his 10th over. An MRI report on the condition of speedster will decide his future participation in the tie.

Scoreboard

ROI: A Chopra c and b Salvi 9, G Gambhir c Mane b Morris 39, S Sriram c Jaffer b Bahutule 77, D Mongia lbw Morris 4, V Rao c Mazumdar b Bahutule 20, J Sharma b Bahutule 16, P Patel batting 56, M Kartik batting 45;
Extras (b-4, lb-12, nb-10) 27;
Total (for 6 wickets, 90 overs) 293
Fall of wickets: 1-24, 2-65, 3-74, 4-134, 5-168, 7-198
Bowling: A Salvi 21-4-70-1, M Patel 10.4-4-31-0, R Morris 15-2-57-2, R Powar 19-6-57-0, B Thakkar 3.2-0-12-0, S Bahutule 21-3-50-3.