Rohtak, Dec. 24: Tamil Nadu paid a heavy price for refusing to adapt to the conditions as Haryana piled an impressive 293/2 on the first day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinals at the Bansi Lal Stadium here on Friday.
Nitin Saini carried his bat through the day with a well compiled 137 (377m, 283b, 15x4, 2x6). The opener found an able ally in Sunny Singh who made 102 (299m, 213b, 10x4, 3x6). The duo added 241 runs for the second wicket in 448 balls.
Winning the toss and electing to bowl on a wicket that helped the ball to move laterally all day, the returns should have been far better for Tamil Nadu. L. Balaji failed to hit the right areas consistently while Sunil Sam (coming in for S. Suresh Kumar) and C. Ganapathy were guilty of drifting towards the pads too often and not making the batsmen play enough.
Catching woes continued to haunt Tamil Nadu further. Saini made the most off the two reprieves he received when on 11 and 28. Dinesh Karthik dived in front of first slip to put down a relatively easy chance when Sam had the batsman chasing a wide delivery. Just before the lunch break, the usually safe S. Badrinath dropped a straightforward chance at slips when Aushik Srinivas induced an edge.
Apart from the lapses on the field there were far too many errors from skipper Karthik that made life easy for the batsmen. There was no fielder saving the single in the covers for Ganapathy, and his lack of pace and line shifting towards leg stump meant easy pickings.
From the other end Aushik was unable to sustain the pressure or to come up with good follow ups.
Brief scores
At Rohtak: Haryana 293/2 in 90 overs (Nitin Saini batting 137, Sunny Singh 102; Sam 1/40, Ashwin 1/58) vs Tamil Nadu.
At Jaipur: Mumbai 252 in 81.1 overs (Rahane 60, Nayar 60; Pankaj Singh 6/64) vs Rajasthan 17/0 in 6 overs.
At Baroda: Railways 241/8 in 90 overs (Kartik 57, Goud 44 batting, J.P. Yadav 42, Munaf Patel 4/87) vs Baroda.
Pic Caption:
Sunny Singh celebrates his century as teammate Nitin Saini looks on during the first day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Tamil Nadu at the Bansilal Cricket Stadium in Rohtak on Friday.