Nothing came easy for Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday. Jharkhands Saurabh Tiwary remained a nagging entity for the first part of the day as the left-hander added 63 runs to his overnight score of 175 to notch his first ever first-class double century. In the process,the visitors went from their overnight score of 262/8 to 334 Even once Tiwary was dismissed,Jharkhands last batting pair of Shankar Rao and Ajay Yadav continued to prolong the hosts misery by adding a further 17 runs. Then,Abhishek Nayars men lost half their side for just 114 runs. Had the sixth wicket pair of Suryakumar Yadav and Hiken Shah not stitched together an unbroken stand of 96 runs,Mumbai surely would have been a lot further behind than the 141 runs they are from gaining the crucial first innings lead. Mumbai paid the price for setting exceedingly defensive fields at the start of the day in their attempt to curb Tiwarys run flow. It hadnt taken long for the 23-year old to launch into his first attack,having destroyed Akbar Khan for four fours and a six in the very first over of the day,the second day of this Ranji Trophy match. The ninth wicket pair for Jharkhand ended up adding 154 runs,before left-arm spinner Vishal Dabholkar finally dismissed Tiwary in the 98th over of the innings. But as Mumbai finally had their chance to bat,it led the way to further pain as Varun Aaron,the fast bowler who played his only Test match at this very venue,had his say. First up,with only the second ball of the innings,Aaron sent Mumbai opener Sushant Marathes stump for a walk. And not long after,he had Wasim Jaffer caught behind. Jharkhand were relentless. When Aaron took a break,the spinners took over. Leggie Samar Qaudri bowled Siddhesh Lad before Shahbaz Nadeem dismissed captain Nayar and Aditya Tare in quick succession. Brief scores: Mumbai 210/5 (A Tare 67,S Yadav 49*; V Aaron 2/28) vs Jharkhand 351 (S Tiwary 238,J Khan 4/79)
