Skipper Aditya Tare struck 154 to lead a fine lower-order rally and put Mumbai in command by posting 488 in their first innings on the second day of their Ranji Trophy Group 'B' match against Tamil Nadu here on Sunday.
Tare, who resumed the days on his individual score of 69, was involved in a 123-run stand for the eight wicket with Shashank Attarde (58).
Tare hit 19 fours and 2 sixes during his 253-ball knock as Mumbai added 204 runs from 59 overs on Sunday from overnight 284 for 6.
In reply, Tamil Nadu were 66 for no loss with experienced opener Abhinav Mukund batting on 52.
The Tamil Nadu bowlers toiled for five sessions before wrapping up the Mumbai innings with ace off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (3/121) and left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore (4/125) sending down 47 and 46 overs respectively.
Ashwin could not add any wicket on Sunday after he took three on Saturday and found himself being carted for a few sixes.
The Mumbai lower-order continued to make things difficult for the home side bowlers with Tushar Deshpande (39) smashing Ashwin for three huge sixes while No.11 Royston Dias too joined the fun, hoisting B Aparajith for a big one over long-on.
Tare, who had started slowly on the opening day, hit some superb shots as the Tamil Nadu bowlers proved to be ineffective. There was turn for the spinners but the home side bowlers could not quite exploit it as they were not consistent.
Left-arm paceman T Natarajan, after a wicketless opening day, managed to pick up two scalps on Sunday, including that of Tare to a superb catch by Aparajith.
When Tamil Nadu batted, Mukund and L Suryapprakash (11 batting) were off to a cautious start with the latter being ultra-defensive.
However, Mukund found his rhythm as he cracked some lovely shots on both sides of the wicket.
Speaking at the end of the day's play, Tare said the best he could do was to lead from the front and he was happy to have done it.
"I have been given the responsibility of leading the side and I had to lead from the front. Either me or (Siddhesh) Lad had to play a big knock. Unfortunately, Lad could not. I felt I needed to be calm at the crease," he said.
"When you are not doing well, you tend to get tight at the crease. I just wanted to keep myself calm at the crease and take it one ball at a time," Tare said about his ninth first-class hundred.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai 488 all out in 148.4 overs (Aditya Tare 154, Shams Mulani 87, Shashank Attarde 58, Jay Bista 41; R Sai Kishore 4/125, R Ashwin 3/121) vs Tamil Nadu 66 for no loss in 31 overs (Abhinav Mukund 52 batting).
At Rajkot: Saurashtra 296 for 2 in 90 overs (Cheteshwar Pujara 248, Sheldon Jackson 161, Perak Mankad 86; Pravin Dubey 2/80, J Suchith 2/129) vs Karnataka 13 for 1 in 8 overs.
At Kanpur: Uttar Pradesh 431 all out in 124.2 overs (Mohd Saif 123, Upendra Yadav 100, RK Singh 62, Almas Shaukat 48; Swapnil K Singh 3/47, Anureet Singh 2/77) vs Baroda 82 for 1 in 25 overs (Aditya Waghmode 34 batting, Vishnu Solanki 34 batting).
At Delhi: Madhya Pradesh 124 all out in 55 overs (Rajat Patidar 38; Himanshu Sangwan 6/33) and 47 for 2 in 19 overs vs Railways 244 all out in 29 overs (Dinesh Mor 45, Mrunal Devdhar 44; Kuldeep Sen 3/36, Mihir Hirwani 3/64).
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