Shahbaz's allround effort put Jharkhand on driver's seat

Shahbaz Nadeem hit a fifty and snapped two crucial wickets as Jharkhand posted 425/9d in their first innings and then reduced Haryana to 141-4 to take the driver's seat on the third day of a Ranji Trophy group B encounter here today.

Shahbaz cracked a 150-ball 70 and then dismissed S G Rohilla and C K Bishnoi -- both had scored fifties in the first innings -- cheaply to consolidate Jharkhand's position in the match.

Resuming at Jharkhand's overnight score of 311/6, Shahbaz (70) added another 30 runs with centurion Ishank Jaggi (135) before the latter was dismissed by Deepak Punia in the 102nd over.
 

Shahbaz then forged a 66-run stand with Sunny Gupta (37) to take Jharkhand across the 400-mark.

Once Shahbaz and next batsman Varun Aaron (8) was stumped by RP Sharma off CK Bishnoi's bowling, Jharkhand decided to declare at 425 in 133.5 overs after taking a lead of 217 runs.

Haryana had a disastrous start to their second innings with opener Rohilla (0) being sent back to the hut by Shahbaz in only the third ball of the innings.

Varun Aaron then dismissed the other opener G A Singh (13) in the eighth over, while Shahbaz returned to get rid of Bishnoi (11) in the ninth over as Haryana slipped to 31-3.

Rajat Paliwal (44) and RM Dagar (64) then stitched 110 runs for the fourth wicket before the latter was removed by Sunny Gupta in the 47th over.

At the stumps, Paliwal and R P Sharma (0) were at the crease with Haryana still 76 runs behind Jharkhand's first innings total.

Brief Score:

Haryana 1st innings: 208

Jharkhand 1st innings: 425/9d in 133.5 overs (IR Jaggi 135, S Nadeem 70; CK Bishnoi 2/43)

Haryana 2nd innings: 141-4 in 47 overs (RM Dagar 64, Rajat Paliwal 44 not out; S Nadeem 2/50).

Other Group B matches:

In Thiruvananthapuram

Kerala 1st innings: 335 allout

Rajasthan 1st innings: 243 allout in 82.3 overs (DH Yagnik 62, TN Dhillon 44; Jalaj Saxena 8/85)

Kerela 2nd innings: 217-2 in 46 overs (Jalaj Saxena 102 not out, Sanju Samson 72 not out; TN Dhillon 1/34).

In Surat

Gujarat 1st innings: 455 in 143 overs (MC Juneja 131, CJ Gandhi 86; Parvez Rasool 4/108) beat Jammu and Kashmir: 261 and 130 allout in 34.4 overs (R Dayal 29; HP Patel 5/49).