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By Sunayana

The highlight of the day as well as the saving grace for Mumbai fans was the 149-run partnership between spinner Bahutule and Tendulkar. The Ranji champs were asked to bat upon the unfavourable and uneven Chennai pitch which proved to be quite a Herculean task for them at the beginning when they ended up trailing at 98-5 when these two saviours came to their teams rescue and put the champs in a respectable yet minimal 272-9 at the end of the days play.

The highlight for the Rest of India XI was Zaheer’s 5-75 which once again proved him as the country’s ace paceman. Mumbai had actually begun the day well, dominating the first hour of play, as the 2 pacemen of the ROI team L. Balaji and Zaheer Khan found it hard to find their line and length making it a good first hour’s play for the champs. With balls which were wide or too full making it hard for the spearheads of the ROI pace attack to find their rhythm Jaffer and Mane punished every lose delivery. Mane showed good form by hitting four fours in consecutive overs of the pacemen making himself very much at home in the Chennai pitch.

But this initial joyride of Mumbai didn’t last long as soon after the first bowling change with Sanjay Bangar who bowled exceptionally tight, Mane soon succumbed to him at a score of 26 making the first breakthrough for the ROI team. Mane was caught in the gully by Kumble off Bangar. Ganguly complemented Bangar really well in his short but miserly spell of four overs. With the reintroduction of the pace attack again of Zaheer and Balaji made the team lose successive wickets. Nishith Shetty(5) mishit a ball to Sehwag at cover of Zaheer while the very well set Jaffer(43) fell prey to Balaji who bowled him clean.

Zaheer then took two more quick wickets, that of Vinod Kambli(2) who was adjudged lbw hence creating no big furore and then got Ajit Agarkar caught behind the wickets by Parthiv Patel.

Tendulkar and Bahutule applied themselves with great class and style after lunch, though Bahutule was indeed a shade or two lucky to get away with a couple of lbw appeals off Ganguly. In both cases the ball pitched on line and straightened. In the first case, where the ball had kept low, Bahutule was plumb; the second decision was not as evident or questionable as the first. A couple of Bahutule's fours were uppishly hit, but apart from that he was exquisite, a good person to be with patient Tendulkar though he did seem a little too flamboyant.

The spin attack of Kumble and Harbhajan brought in an hour before tea did not create much a ripple in the wickets column as they were a little hesitant to make the ball turn fully and go attacking, so both the batsmen got used to playing them both before and after the tea and played off them well.

With the change in the ball, there was a change in the play of Tendulkar, two marvelous shots off Zaheer to the boundary but it also showed his urgency to get his 100 and hence much to the disappointment of the fans Tendulkar got out at 94(197 balls) when he edged one off Zaheer to Dravid keeping stumps in place of Parthiv. The champs were then 2 247 for 6.

Then came the turn of Kumble who indeed showed his experience and finesse when he first got Bahutule out (58 off 183) with his flight and got him to miscue a ball on leg stump to VVS Laxman at short midwicket (260 for 7). And then a yorker that bowled Ramesh Powar, Mumbai's lower-order hero for much of the last Ranji Trophy season, for zero (260 for 8). Zaheer then trapped Vinayak Samant lbw. Zaheer who after a disappointing 5-75 gobbled up 5 of the Mumbai wickets hence making the most of the day. But after seeing the ROI bowlers performance in the first day one cant help but think about what will be the comeback by the Mumbai team. Will the champs prove their supremacy? Lets wait and watch.  

 

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