Irani Cup: Navdeep Saini breathes fire after Rest of India scores 484

A fit-again Navdeep Saini once again rattled the Madhya Pradesh top-order after Yash Dhull struck a blistering half-century to bundle out Rest of India for 484 on the second day of the Irani Cup in Gwalior on Thursday. Saini (2/15) looked in good touch and generated good pace on a dead track to put Madhya Pradesh back on the peg before Yash Dubey (53 batting) and Harsh Gawli (47 batting) took the fourth wicket Adding 97 runs took the hosts. 112 for 3 in his first innings at stumps.

In a match such as the Irani Cup, national selectors usually look not only at numbers but also at specific players with specific objectives.

One such player is Saini, who missed the entire Ranji Trophy season due to an abdominal strain and had to undergo extensive rehabilitation work at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).

Asked to bowl in the second session of the day, he hurried the MP batsmen with pace and pace off the track.

It was Bengal seamer Mukesh Kumar (1/27) who got the first breakthrough for the rest as he set up a wicket for southpaw Arham Aquil (0), who clearly did not look ready for this stage. crease.

He didn’t seem happy with the caught-back decision, but was able to back off without troubling the scorers.

Saini was activated when he bowled beautifully in the off stump channel and got enough pace to force the batsmen to play their deliveries.

Madhya Pradesh skipper Himanshu Mantri looked to signal an away movement on the delivery and warmed up well at second slip and took a good catch by the alert Dhull.

Shubham Sharma (4) hit a boundary but never looked comfortable against Saini, whose nip-backer was good enough to find him in front.

However once the ball started getting old, Dube and Gawli did not face too many problems interacting with the other bowlers.

There’s nothing in the track for the bowlers and while the MP duo didn’t have the range and flair of players like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Abhimanyu Easwaran, they didn’t find it too difficult to negotiate with bowlers other than Saini.

The third medium pacer Atit Seth was not intimidating and bowled enough loose deliveries.

The pitch showed no signs of wear and tear, with India A left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar also not troubling the MP batsmen as there was hardly any deviation from the track on offer.

The rest failed to make a breakthrough during the final session of the day but are favorites to grab a big first innings lead as MP still need 373 runs to progress.

Earlier in the day, only Dhull displayed positive intent as he scored 55 off 71 balls which included eight fours.

But after a complete dominance on the first day, the rest of the batsmen could not repeat that performance and they lost seven wickets for 107 runs.

Dhull played some fine strokes on both sides but his innings needs to be put in perspective as he came out to bat at No.6 on the flattest deck without any scoreboard pressure as the defending champions scored nearly 400 runs.

Brief scores: Rest of India 1st innings 484 in 121.3 overs (Abhimanyu Easwaran 154, Yashasvi Jaiswal 213, Yash Dhull 55, Kumar Karthikeya 2/118, Avesh Khan 4/72).

Madhya Pradesh 1st innings: 112/3 in 43 overs (Yash Dubey 53, Navdeep Saini 2/15).

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