Railways opener Shivakant Shukla may consider himself unlucky to be dismissed in the 90s for the second match in a row,but though individual glory may elude him,his painstaking innings of 96 helped the team cause,taking Railways to 204 for 5 on the first day against Orissa. Having kept away everything that Orissa could throw at him even as wickets kept falling at the other end,Shuklas fall came against part time off-spinner Govind Poddar,in the penultimate over of the day,more a lapse of concentration than anything else. In that moment,Poddar got the ball past his defence,and the umpires finger went up. It took Shukla quite a while to drag himself off the field. I had been nervous in my last match against UP,but today,I was confident. I felt I only needed to keep playing but it wasnt to be, he said after a 264-ball inning that comprised 12 fours and a six. In between,he also broke a couple of bats the pitch was low and slow and everytime I tried to clear the field,the ball would hit the bottom. The repeated assaults broke two bats, he said. To be fair Shukla who played for UP till the last season has had his chances to score a maiden ton for his new team much before,with scores of 77,87 and 98 before his current knock. At some point it does get to you. If you look around,you see players scoring double hundreds and more. If I score only in the nineties,it is hard to be noticed, he admitted. Shukla started positively even as Shreyas Khanolkar and Nitin Bille were out within the first hour of play. He then shared a partnership of 107 with skipper Sanjay Bangar (46) as Railways finished the first session at 94 But runs dried up thereafter as medium pacer Basant Mohanty came round the wicket to cramp the batsmen,while a spread-out field effectively stopped the boundaries. As pressure built up,Biplab Samantray found Bangars pads and removed Prashanth Awasthi off the next delivery. Mahesh Rawat injected some purpose into proceedings,scoring six boundaries in his unbeaten 38. Shukla,meanwhile,became jittery as the elusive hundred approached. Lucky edges saw him move to 91,but further luck would be elusive. Brief Scores: Railways 204/5 (Shivakant Shukla 96,Mahesh Rawat 38 batting; Biplab Samantray 2/32) vs Orissa
