Catches win matches and Rest of India drops might not have yet cost them match but they still missed the chance to seize out any advantage.
Irani Trophy, Day 3: Rajasthan fights back against sloppy Rest of India
Rajasthan batsmen showed lots of guts and patience as they slowly took the fight against Rest of India (ROI) bowlers on the 3rd day of the match but they were helped by ROI fielders with three dropped catches. At the close of play, Rajasthan crossed 300 runs mark but still have mountain to climb as they were still trailed by 356 runs.
Rajasthan’s middle order batsmen Parida and Bist fought hard in the first session against the steaming ROI bowlers and their luck did helped them to prevail. The pace of Varon Aaron and Umesh Yadav gave them plenty of problems as they took blows one after another on their body. Parida was in particular very lucky in the first season; there was a caught behind appeal turned down of Yadav bowling, Patel dropping the catch diving to his right again of Yadav bowling and Mukund dropped the catch at point of Rahul Sharma first over. There was couple of edges also from Bist bat which either fell short or in no man’s land. But both players managed to keep their temperament and focus to go into the lunch without losing their wicket.
The second session of the day must the best session Rajasthan had so far in the match. Both Parida and Bist looked solid in their batting, untroubled by any of the ROI bowlers and completed the first wicket less session of the match. Rajasthan dressing room would be mighty relieved when they saw the scorecard read 211/3 at Tea interval. But next session undone all the hard work made by Parida and Bist. The first over after tea, Vinay found the edge from Parida bat which was pouched well by Pandey at second slip for 85 and Ojha dismissed Bist in nineties. Bist fell short of well deserved hundred by just 7 runs. Vinay got another wicket to get into the tail of Rajasthan line-up.
But unlike his bowling, Charar showed good hands with bat as he grilled out 16 testing deliveries from the bowlers along with Menaria who is batting very well at 59 as the day closed. Rajasthan put lot better show today but still have lot of work to even think about drawing the match. ROI bowlers will come back tomorrow and hoping to clean up the rest of Rajasthan batsmen as quickly as possible to either enforce follow-on or score some quick runs in the 2nd innings to have enough time to bowl out Rajasthan to win the match.
Score:
Rajasthan 307 for 6 (Bist 93, Parida 85, Menaria 59*, Ojha 2/58) trail Rest of India 663 by 356 runs
Pitch has not deteriorated as much everyone expected but still day 4 and 5 are mostly the result producing days in India.
Tags: Cricket, Domestic Cricket, India, Irani Trophy, Parthiv Patel, Rajasthan, Rest Of India, ROI
