da premier bet： Haryana’s spinners struck vital blows in the post-tea session to bringdown Delhi from a commanding position and reduce them to 288 for sevenin the first innings in the North Zone Ranji tie
Staff Reporter09-Nov-2001Haryana’s spinners struck vital blows in the post-tea session to bringdown Delhi from a commanding position and reduce them to 288 for sevenin the first innings in the North Zone Ranji tie.Replying to Haryana’s 316, Delhi failed to capitalise on a 121-runopening stand between Gautam Gambhir (91) and Akash copra (48). From adominant position of 166 for two, Delhi collapsed to 260 for seven,with Amit Mishra striking thrice and Gautam Vashisht twice.Earlier, resuming at their overnight score of 282 for eight, Haryanaadded 34 runs in eight overs before Arun Singh ended the innings bytaking the wickets of Sumit Narwal (39) and Nitin Aggarwal (11). TheDelhi openers settled down early and soon got into an aggressive mode,hitting pace bowlers S Vidyut and Narwal all over the ground.Just when the partnership was going strong, and the hosts were firmlyon the road to a huge first innings score, Haryana got a breakthroughwhen Nitin Aggarwal’s direct hit broke the stumps at the non-striker’send while Chopra was attempting a cheeky single.Gambhir added 43 runs with new man Radhey Shyam Gupta. Just when helooked set for a well-deserved century, however, he was deceived as hejumped out to a flighted ball from Vashisht, keeper Ratra whipping offthe bails in a flash.Vashisht struck again after four overs, dismissing Gupta caught atsilly point by Shafiq Khan with the scoreboard reading 179 for three.Haryana clawed their way back into the game, grabbing four morewickets within a space of 10 overs, the Mishra-Vashisht combinationbowling accurately.But Delhi skipper Mithun Manhas (45 off 32 balls) refused to give upand executed some powerful shots in trying to stem the rot. Hecollaborated with Pradeep Chawla to add 44 runs, even as Haryana’sbowlers were on the rampage.Manhas could not hold on for long, though, as he was trapped in frontby Aggarwal. Even as Delhi’s middle order failed, the tailenders notonly showed resistance, but adopted attack as the best form ofdefence, with Sarandeep Singh (20) and Abhishek Sharma (23*) makingsome quick runs and hitting four boundaries each. Sharma and AmitBandhari (4*) were at the crease, and the hosts still trailed by 28runs, when stumps were drawn.