Already down after two days of play, Jharkhand was kept firmly on the mat by Mumbai at stumps on day three too in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal at the SDNR Wadiyar Stadium here.
After Shardul Thakur snuffed out the last two batsmen early on Friday morning, Mumbai, mindful of the danger of batting last on a deteriorating wicket, chose not to enforce the follow-on. It made 245 in its second essay and thus set Jharkhand a target of 490.
Jharkhand finished the day at 28 for one, Anand Singh the batsmen dismissed.
Even as Shreyas Iyer continued his prolific run, stroking a fluent 81 (106b, 9x4, 2x6) and in the process going past the 1000-run mark for this season, the rest of the Mumbai batsmen seemed a tad complacent.
First innings centurion Akhil Herwadkar was caught down the leg-side, Suryakumar Yadav and Sufiyan Shaikh were both out trying to sweep balls which were never meant to be and Siddhesh Lad, succumbing to a rush of blood, played against the spin and out caught at slip. Leggie Samir Quadri accounted for three of these wickets and finished with figures of 18.1-3-62-5.
In fact, if Shreyas had been caught at deep point by Jaskaran Singh when on 10 and Abhishek Nayar (43, 77b, 7x4) had been stumped off the very first ball he faced, things could have been a bit closer.
Instead, Jharkhand now has to brace itself for a near-impossible task of scoring 462 more runs with two full days remaining.
The scores:
Mumbai — 1st innings: 416
Jharkhand — 1st innings: S.P. Gautam c Suryakumar b Shardul 18, Anand Singh c Herwadkar b Nayar 39, Virat Singh lbw b Herwadkar 9, Saurabh Tiwary c & b Herwadkar 17, Ishank Jaggi c Suryakumar b Abdulla 14, Kumar Deobrat st. Sufiyan b Abdulla 15, Kaushal Singh c Sufiyan b Shardul 43, Rahul Shukla c Sufiyan b Abdulla 8, Shahbaz Nadeem lbw b Herwadkar 1, Jaskaran Singh (not out) 3, Samar Quadri b Shardul 0. Extras (b-1, lb-3, w-1): 5; Total (in 71.5 overs): 172.
Fall of wickets: 1-46, 2-64, 3-83, 4-86, 5-109, 6-120, 7-141, 8-148, 9-172.
Mumbai bowling: Dhawal Kulkarni 7-0-11-0, Vishal Dabholkar 7-0-27-0, Akhil Herwadkar 11-2-26-3, Iqbal Abdulla 24-5-50-3, Shardul Thakur 13.5-3-37-3, Abhishek Nayar 7-3-10-1, Siddhesh Lad 2-0-7-0.
Mumbai — 2nd innings: Akhil Herwadkar c Gautam b Rahul 15, Jay Bista c & b Rahul 14, Shreyas Iyer b Nadeem 81, Suryakumar Yadav lbw b Quadri 19, Siddhesh Lad c Kaushal b Quadri 18, Abhishek Nayar c Rahul b Quadri 43, Sufiyan Shaikh b Quadri 14, Iqbal Abdullah b Kaushal 16, Shardul Thakur c Nadeem b Kaushal 11, Vishal Dhabolkar lbw b Quadri 1, Dhawal Kulkarni (not out) 0. Extras (b-8, lb-5): 13; Total (in 63.1 overs): 245.
Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-48, 3-91, 4-119, 5-182, 6-207, 7-216, 8-242, 9-245.
Jharkhand bowling: Rahul Shukla 12-0-57-2, Kaushal Singh 5-1-15-2; Shahbaz Nadeem 26-6-89-1, Jaskaran Singh 2-0-9-0, Samar Quadri 18.1-3-62-5.
Jharkhand — 2nd innings: S.P. Gautam (batting) 12, Anand Singh c Shreyas b Abdullah 12, Virat Singh (batting) 4. Total (for one wicket in 13 overs): 28
Fall of wicket: 1-19
Mumbai bowling: Shardul Thakur 2-0-3-0, Abhishek Nayar 1-0-8-0, Iqbal Abdullah 5-0-11-1, Vishal Dhabolkar 4-2-4-0, Suryakumar Yadav 1-0-2-0.
