Mumbai gain upper hand through bowlers’ superb show

A superb bowling performance coupled with a decent effort with the bat gave Mumbai the upper hand on the third day of their Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Hyderabad here on Sunday.

Resuming their first innings at the overnight score of 167/3, Hyderabad could add only 113 runs to their total before being all out.  Opener Tanmay Agarwal was the highest scorer among the Hyderabad batsmen with a patient 82.

Medium-pacer Abhishek Nayar led the Mumbai charge with figures of 4/60. Left-arm spinner Vijay Gohil helped clear up the tail-enders for figures of 3/59. Pacer Shardul Thakur, who was recently called up to the Indian squad, returned 2/45.

That meant Mumbai, who were all out for 294 in their first stint, had a first innings lead of 14 runs. That lead had swelled to 116 runs by the close of play as the defending champions were 102/3 in their second innings with opener Praful Waghela and Aditya Tare in the middle.

Waghela was unbeaten on a patient 27 which had come off 88 balls.  Tare was in a more belligerent mood, hitting eight boundaries on his way to a 47-ball 39. The duo produced an unbroken 50-run partnership after Mumbai had lost their first three wickets cheaply.

Earlier in the day, overnight batmen Tanmay Agarwal and Bavanaka Sandeep could add only 24 runs to Hyderabad’s total before the latter was caught behind off Nayar’s bowling.

The duo had added 56 runs between them to help bring Hyderabad close to the 200-run mark. Kolla Sumanth and Mehdi Hassan then added 58 runs between them before Gohil removed Hassan and Akash Bhandari in the space of just five balls to swing the momentum back in Mumbai’s favour.