Bengaluru, Sep 6: Musheer Khan and Navdeep Saini shone yet again to play key roles on a bright day for India B on Day Two of the Duleep Trophy first-round match against India A at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday.
At stumps, India A reached 134/2, and trailed India B by 187 runs, with K.L. Rahul (23 not out) and Riyan Parag (27 not out) at the crease. Musheer continued to be impressive on Day Two and made 181 eventually, laced with 16 fours and five sixes.
He also shared a mammoth 205-run stand for the eighth wicket with Saini, whose fine knock of 56 was laced with eight fours and a six, as India B made a competitive 321. Saini then came back with the ball to dismiss India A skipper Shubman Gill (25) and later, his opening partner Mayank Agarwal (36).
In the morning, Musheer and Saini saw off the challenge posed by the second new ball to increase the misery on India A bowlers. Musheer, who survived a run-out chance early on, was cracking in ramping, cutting, pulling and driving to bring up his 150, and went on to turn an lbw decision off Riyan in his favour.
Just like on Day 1, Musheer continued to attack against the spinners – dancing down the pitch to loft off Riyan, while slog-sweeping Kuldeep Yadav for another maximum. Kuldeep had the last laugh when Musheer didn’t time his slog-sweep well and holed out to deep mid-wicket.
Saini hit a couple of boundaries to get his first fifty in first-class cricket before Akash Deep took him and Yash Dayal out to complete his four-fer and end the India B innings. Gill and Agarwal began solidly by taking full advantage of India B’s error-prone bowling with some delightful off-side boundaries to bring up fifty of the opening partnership.
But Saini turned the match by having Gill bowled, as the batter shouldered his arms against a length ball which nipped back in sharply to hit the stumps in a brain-fade moment. Post lunch, he had Agarwal caught down the leg side, with Rishabh Pant taking a superb diving catch to his left.
Rahul and Riyan had to be sedate against Saini, Mukesh Kumar and Nitish Kumar Reddy on a pitch still helping pacers, before the duo hit seven boundaries between themselves in an unbroken 68-run stand for the third wicket. While Riyan has been fluent, Rahul was more into a shell and even survived a caught-out chance at three before finding his groove later, as India A would want for the duo to bat for long on Day 3. (IANS)
