Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 1: Orissa pacers Alok Sahoo (4/18) and Basant Mohanty (2/10) bowled with devastating effect Tuesday to have hosts Rajasthan reeling at 28 for the loss of six wickets in their Ranji Trophy Group A encounter at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. Earlier after being put into bat, by rival skipper Pankaj Singh, the visitors were dismissed for 151.
But that did not seem to hamper the performances of Basant and Alok, both of whom created panic among the home batsmen on a pitch that offered movement off the pitch. In 16 overs, they reduced the hosts’ aspiration of an outright win with some superb incisive bowling.
Orissa batsmen also however, failed to get going against Pankaj and left-arm medium pacer Aniket Choudhury (6/27 in 14.2 overs). Except for Anurag Sarangi (43, 99b, 8×4) the others did not show the application needed to grind it out in the middle.
Skipper Natraj Behera (19) and Ranjeet Singh (18) started well, but failed to consolidate their starts into substantial knocks. As a result, in spite of Anurag holding one end up, the visitors continued to lose wickets at regular intervals at the other end. Orissa innings got past the 150-run mark due to the efforts of Mr Extras (25) who emerged as the second highest scorer of the innings.
But the batting failures took a backseat as Basant and Alok, playing in place of Suryakant Pradhan, hit back in tandem. However, their job is not over as they will have to restrict Rajasthan to a low score on a pitch where the game will not proceed beyond the third day and the first innings lead will come handy.
Brief scores: Orissa 151 (Anurag Sarangi 43, Aniket Choudhury 6/27, Pankaj Singh 3/53); Rajasthan 28 for 6 (Alok Sahoo 4/18, Basant Mohanty 2/10). Match to continue.
Other Group A games
(At Guwahati): Bengal 191 for 4 (Sayon Sekhar Mondal 87, Sudeep Chatterjee 65) vs Assam. Match to continue.
(At Pune): Maharashtra 212 (Ankit Bawne 87, Sreenath Aravind 3/35); Karnataka 50 for 1 (Mayank Agarwal 25 batting). Match to continue.
(At Nagpur): Vidarbha 284 for 6 (Faiz Faizal 126) vs Haryana. Match to continue.
