Mumbai tail wags again

Ramesh Powar stood his ground,waited for the umpire to make his decision. He had driven the ball uppishly and the cover fielder,Shivakant Shukla

Ramesh Powar stood his ground,waited for the umpire to make his decision. He had driven the ball uppishly and the cover fielder,Shivakant Shukla,claimed to have taken a clean catch. Powar was hoping to get the benefit of doubt when there was none and soon began his trudge to the pavilion after making 30. The portly off-spinner had lost the opportunity to add to his first-class tally of 16 half-centuries and seven tons. But Powar had ensured that the Railways players were a frustrated lot after he had added 57 runs for the eight-wicket with Ankeet Chavan.

Overnight centurion Rohit Sharma was dismissed for 175 in the first session,but any hopes the Railways might have had of quickly putting an end to the Mumbai innings vanished once the lower order began batting with purpose.

Powar8217;s exit brought Dhawal Kulkarni to the crease,another Mumbai lower-order batsman who puts a price on his wicket. After taking his time to get off the mark,Kulkarni found a flurry of boundaries to push Mumbai8217;s score beyond 450. Kulkarni8217;s late-order show that had five hits to the fence and a six ensured that Mumbai8217;s lower-order had complemented the top-order in this innings. This was not the first instance of opponents struggling to bowl out a Mumbai side even after knocking down the top order.

The last six batsman,including Abdullah collectively contributed 134 in the first innings. Ajit Agarkar,Vinayak Samant,Kulkarni and Iqbal Abdullah are some of the lower-order batsman to become thorns in the flesh of opponents recently. Two years ago,Powar made an unbeaten 128 to help his side recover from a precarious 188/5 to an imposing 471/9 declared.

When batting alongside Rohit,Chavan knew exactly what was needed of him. All I did was to give him the strike as he was the senior partner and was batting well, said Chavan,who made a 185-ball 44. Dhawal Kulkarni added: Our opponents should know by now that we have 10 batsmen in the side.

Khanolkar five-for was the only high point for Railways. Khanlokar8217;s 5/78 included the prized wicket of Rohit. However,at stumps Railways didn8217;t have much to cheer about as they were 66/3.

Brief scores: Mumbai 483 all out in 141.3 overs Rohit Sharma 175,Suryakumar Yadav 88,Ankeet Chavan 44; Sheyas Khanolkar 5/78 vs Railways 66/3 in 23 overs S Shukla 31; Ramesh Powar 2/ 18