Ranji Trophy: Ton up Virender Sehwag puts Delhi in command against Gujarat

In reply, Gujarat were 34 for one at stumps in the 13 overs that they faced in the day.

Sehwag curbed his natural instincts at times as he was focussed cashing in on a good run of form that he is in currently after his 64 against Rajasthan.

There were the cuts, the drives and the pulls but completing a century off 145 balls is certainly slow by Sehwag’s standards. There were a couple of phases when he played the defensive game, gave bowlers the respect.

His best phase during four hour stay at the crease addition of 106 runs in just over 20 overs with Mithun Manhas (44, 62 balls, 8×4).

There were of course 14 boundaries and he reached his ton taking a single off left-arm spinner Pranjal Sutaria, who also dismissed him caught by Bhargav Merai.

“I believe Viru was never under any kind of pressure and is batting freely. If he played a game which is not his natural style, it shows his commitment for Delhi team. It was a type of century that the team expected from him,” chief coach Vijay Dahiya said.

One can expect a good contest in the next two days Gujarat have a fairly decent batting line-up capable of snatching three points but the pitch is getting lower and slower which certainly make scoring runs a dificult proposition.

Delhi, however started the day on a sedate note with Unmukt really making rough weather of the three runs that he needed to score to complete his milestone.

He took more than 45 minutes to complete his sixth century before he went for a pull shot off a short ball from Kushang Patel to get out. Unmukt batted three minutes short of five hours and faced 227 balls, hitting 13 fours and four sixes in the process.

Brief Scores: Delhi 1st Innings 425/6 decl (Virender Sehwag 105, Unmukt Chand 105, Jesal Karia 2/81) Gujarat 1st Innings: 34/1 (Shivam Sharma 1/12).

Ravikumar Thakur grabbed five wickets in an impressive pace-bowling show to give Vidarbha take the upperhand over Rajasthan on the second day of their Ranji Trophy cricket match.

Brief Scores: Vidarbha: 296 all out in 99.4 overs (Shalabh Shrivastava 130; Pankaj Singh 5/109). Rajasthan: 188 all out in 61.5 overs (Vineet Saxena 61;Ravikumar Thakur 5/50).

Yuvi smashes third consecutive Ranji ton

Out-of-favour India batsman Yuvraj Singh completed a hat-trick of centuries in the ongoing Ranji season before Mandeep Singh hit a double ton, which guided Punjab to a formidable 659/7 in their Group B cricket match against Saurashtra.

Madhya Pradesh find themselves trailing Baroda

Madhya Pradesh were in a spot of bother at 103 for three in reply to Baroda’s decent first innings total of 358 riding on half-centuries from Deepak Hooda (85) and Saurabh Wakaskar (94) in a group league match of the Ranji.

Brief Scores: MP 1st Innings: 358 (Saurabh Wakaskar 94, Deepak Hoda 85, Puneet Datey 5/101) MP 1st innings: 103/3 (Jalaj saxena 26, Devendra Bundela 22 batting, Naman Ojha 19 batting, Sagar Manglorkar 3/46).

Hyderabad in Cruise control against Services

Hyderabad are well in course for first innings lead as they reached 210 for three courtesy Hanuma Vihari’s century against Services in a Ranji Trophy cricket league match.

Brief Scores: Services 1st Innings: 306 in 101.1 overs (Saumik Chatterjee 70, Deepak Punia 70, Akash Bhandari 4/75) Hyderabad: 210/3 in 76 overs (Hanuma Vihari 114 batting, Tanmay Agarwal 35).

Curated For You

India vs South Africa 2nd ODI Highlights: Aiden Markram stars with a century as SA defeat IND by 4 wickets to level series at 1-1

Akshay Kumar-Priyanka Chopra’s relationship soured; I cut him from my film, says Suneel Darshan: ‘His mistake, why should she suffer?’

Canadian border officer sues Indian govt, seeks $9 million in damages