Mumbai’s batsmen appeared clueless against the pace and craft of left-arm seamer Jaydev Unadkat and off-spinner Jayant Yadav and folded up for 182 by tea in its second innings of the Irani Cup at the Brabourne Stadium here on Wednesday.
Set a fourth innings target of 480, Rest of India finished the fourth day at 100 for the loss of K.S. Bharat’s wicket and is looking at an uphill task on the last day of the match.
The story of the day was Mumbai’s inability to come to terms with difficult circumstances so remarkably created by a Rest attack that was handicapped by the absence of the injured Ankit Rajpoot.
For Mumbai, only Suryakumar Yadav and Siddhesh Lad demonstrated the composure to stem the rot that had set in after the departure of Shreyas Iyer and umpire Virender Sharma’s doubtful decision against Jay Bista.
The bowler and wicketkeeper appealed for a catch only as an afterthought and the slip fielder did not respond. But the umpire raised the dreaded finger for the young batsman to shake his head in disapproval. Bista looked to be in ominous form and the slow-motion replays confirmed that his bat was nowhere near the ball.
Mumbai began the fourth day by losing Shreyas for a duck for the first time in 26 first-class matches. His dismissal off the sixth ball of the day, when he flicked Unadkat to Bharat, put the home team on the backfoot. In the event, the 54-run stand for the fifth wicket between Suryakumar and Lad rescued Mumbai from 62 for four with skipper Aditya Tare falling to mediumpacer Krishna Das.
It was a case of sheer bad luck that resulted in the exit of Suryakumar (49, 76b, 7x4). The right-hander employed the sweep shot without the risk of top edging to the fielder behind square. But when he was just one run short of completing his half-century, his sweep shot off Jayant Yadav, rebounded off his boot towards the substitute slip fielder Ian Dev Singh.
Lad (60, 109b, 6x4, 1x6) also fell to Jayant.
The scores:
Mumbai — 1st innings: 603.
Rest of India — 1st innings: 306.
Mumbai — 2nd innings: Akhil Herwadkar b Jayant Yadav 1, Jay Bista c Ojha b Unadkat 38, Shreyas Iyer c Bharat b Unadkat 0, Suryakumar Yadav c sub b Jayant Yadav 49, Aditya Tare c Ojha b Das 6, Siddhesh Lad c Chatterjee b Jayant Yadav 60, Abhishek Nayar c Ojha b Unadkat 5, Dhawal Kulkarni b Jayant Yadav 2, Balwinder Singh Sandhu (Jr) (not out) 4, Shardul Thakur c Jayant Yadav b Binny 13, Iqbal Abdullah c Jackson b Binny 0; Extras (b-4): 4; Total (in 51.2 overs): 182.
Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-3, 3-42, 4-62, 5-116, 6-149, 7-164, 8-165, 9-182.
Rest of India bowling: Jayant Yadav 24-3-93-4, Jaydev Unadkat 11-4-16-3, Stuart Binny 8.2-0- 41-2, Krishna Das 7-0-25-1, Sudip Chatterjee 1-0-3-0.
Rest of India — 2nd innings: Faiz Fazal (batting) 41, K.S. Bharat b Abdulllah 42, Sudip Chatterjee (batting) 17; Total (for one wkt. in 37 overs): 100.
Fall of wicket: 1-66.
Mumbai bowling: Dhawal Kulkarni 6-1-17-0, Shardul Thakur 6-2-18-0, Jay Bista 6-0-19-0, Abhishek Nayar 7-4-13-0, Suryakumar Yadav 4-0-14-0, Iqbal Abdullah 8-2-19-1.
