: Exactly two months ago, Siddhesh Lad and Abhishek Nayar — the ‘crisis men’ of Mumbai — had helped Mumbai earn the first-innings lead by scoring centuries on the fourth day against Madhya Pradesh at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh Cricket Stadium.
Cut to Friday, the duo — helped by skipper Aditya Tare’s half century — bailed Mumbai out of trouble against Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal at the same venue.
Mumbai ended the opening day on 250 for five, thanks to Lad’s unbeaten 101 and his century partnerships with Tare and Nayar, the latter being unbroken.
The wicket — with clumps of grass short of good length at either end and dry otherwise — troubled the batsmen early on with inconsistent bounce, but slowed down considerably as the day progressed.
Lad, who walked in at No.6 when the team was reeling at 34 for four, played his part to perfection. Had B. Sandeep caught Lad’s inside edge off leggie Akash Bhandari off the first ball after Tea, Mumbai would have been in dire straits.
But Lad, on 35 then, made Hyderabad pay heftily. A slog sweep off Bhandari opened the floodgates and the diminutive batsman started timing the ball sweetly.
Trademark stroke
While his sweeps and pulls were a treat to watch, an inside-out six — his trademark stroke — off left-arm spinner Mehdi Hasan was the highlight of his knock.
With Nayar rotating the strike at will, Lad flourished as he scored 66 runs in the last session to complete his second hundred of the season in the last over of the day.
It was a risky decision to bat first for Mumbai, but Hyderabad almost made its opponents pay with spirited opening spells by all the three seamers.
While M. Ravi Kiran was unfortunate not to have picked up a wicket, Milind got one to rise sharply on to an edgy Kevin d’Almeida and ’keeper K. Sumanth didn’t falter. Two balls hence, Milind got one to rise and Shreyas Iyer edged to P. Akshath Reddy.
Suryakumar Yadav then played a reckless stroke to leave Mumbai stranded at 19 for three and when Milind got an inside edge off Praful Waghela’s willow on to the leg-stump, Mumbai was struggling at 34 for four.
The scores: Mumbai — 1st innings: Kevin d’Almeida c Sumanth b Milind 9, Praful Waghela b Milind 13, Shreyas Iyer c Reddy b Milind 0, Suryakumar Yadav c Sumanth b Siraj 5, Aditya Tare c Badrinath b Siraj 73, Siddhesh Lad (batting) 101, Abhishek Nayar (batting) 46; Extras (nb-1, w-2): 3; Total (for five wkts. in 90 overs): 250.
Fall of wickets: 1-12, 2-12, 3-19, 4-34, 5-139.
Hyderabad bowling: M. Ravi Kiran 17-6-46-0, C.V. Milind 18-5-64-3, Mohammed Siraj 18-5-58-2, Mehdi Hasan 20-10-35-0, Akash Bhandari 17-2-47-0.
Toss: Mumbai
