Up,Down 038; Out For 79

And rightly so,as it was Upadhyay8217;s three-wicket burst with the new ball that hurt Uttar Pradesh,who were made to follow on. Chasing Railways8217; first innings score of 374,UP were bundled out for 74,and were 18/1 at stumps.

Discard shines

Strangely,it was the second day running that a UP discard hurt the RP Singh-led side. If it was Shivakant Shukla8217;s classy 98 that made batting look easy on Day One,Wednesday belonged to Upadhyay,who had played the Under-22 tournament for UP in 2005.

Starting from the pavilion end,KK,as he his called by his teammates,troubled the top-order with his line and movement. Upadhyay removed debutant UP opener Zahid Ali in the third over of the innings,getting him caught behind to a delivery that left him. Two balls later,Upadhyay got one to straighten,uprooting Tanmay Srivastavas middle stump.

And UP never really recovered from this double blow. Praveen Gupta and Mohammad Kaif spent considerable time in the middle from 4/2,they added 30 in 17.2 overs but once Kaif was dismissed it all went downhill.

Kaif was given out caught when it appeared as if the ball had kissed the pad instead of the bat,off the bowling of JP Yadav.

Upadhyay then returned to take two more wickets before the tea interval,snuffing out any hope of a UP revival. Arish Alam,who had been extra watchful,was smartly caught by Mahesh Rawat behind the stumps and Parvinder Singh was caught by a diving Shukla in the slips to leave UP tottering at 46/5.

Post tea,Railways needed just 11 overs and three balls to dismiss the tail with Bangar picking up the all the wickets that fell. Bangar had Prashant Gupta,who was the only UP batsmen to show any application on his way to a patient 30,edge one behind. Piyush Chawla perished trying to get quick runs he ballooned a simple catch to Anureet Singh at mid-on.

And Praveen Gupta edged a regulation catch to the slips. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the next to be dismissed as he was caught low in the slips by Murali Kartik. RP Singh was the last to go,failing to clear Ashish Yadav at mid-on.

Early strike

Following on,Upadhyay struck early again. Knowing the task at hand,opener Tanmay was very watchful but was again caught off-guard.

He shouldered arms to the previuos delivery that pitched and carried on with the angle to Rawat. The next one came back after pitching and caught him plumb in front.

Coming on the back of dream figures of 10/157 against Punjab in the previous match,Upadhyay once again proved his mettle after he was not preferred in the first three matches.

UP is one of the big teams in domestic cricket and able to do well against them is special. I played Under-22 cricket for UP but wasnt picked for the senior team. I am really happy I did well against them, he said after the end of the days play.

Earlier,Railways innings folded seven minutes before lunch. The lower order led by Mahesh Rawat added 89 runs to frustate UP. Rawat scored a brisk 45-ball 35 and Upadhyay hit five boundaries in his unbeaten 31 to help the team to 374.

Brief scores: Railways 374 in 123.2 overs N Bille 123,S Shukla 98,K Upadhyay not out 31; B Kumar 3/76,RP Singh 3/78,P Chawla 3/104 vs Uttar Pradesh 74 all out in 40.3 overs P Gupta 30; S Bangar 5/20,K Upadhyay 4/37 amp; f/0 18/1 in 13 overs K Upadhyay 1/4