Left-arm seamer Aniket Choudhary grabbed four wickets as Rajasthan closed in on a massive first-innings lead despite an unbeaten century by Uttarakhand’s middle-order batter Yuvraj Chaudhary in their Ranji Trophy Group B match on Friday. Replying to Rajasthan’s imposing first-innings total of 660/7 declared, Uttarakhand were 347/9 at stumps on the third day of the elite group game as the threat of follow-on loomed large. Yuvraj, 23, was batting on a valiant 144 off 227 balls at the close of play and giving him company was Devendra Singh Bora, who was yet to open his account.
Resuming the day on 109 for two, Uttarakhand suffered a big blow right at the start as they lost skipper Ravikumar Samarth for 51, after the batter had added just one run to his overnight score.
Samarth made a brisk 51 off 59 balls before being dismissed by Aniket (4/79 in 26 overs).
Left-arm spinner Kukna Ajay Singh (3/80) bowled the other overnight batter, Swapnil Singh, for 36.
Yuvraj and Aditya Tare (28 off 48 balls) steadied the Uttarakhand innings with a 62-run stand for the fifth wicket before Ajay Singh had the latter stumped to again leave the home team in a spot of bother at 219/5.
Deepak Chahar disturbed Abhimanyu Singh’s stumps to make it 236/6 for Uttarakhand and Ajay Singh compounded the home side’s woes by removing Abhay Negi (19).
Desperately seeking a partnership, Uttarakhand found one finally as Yuvraj added 60 runs for the eighth wicket with Deepak Dhapola (10), with the former scoring 50 of those runs.
However, Uttarakhand lost two wickets in the same over with the score reading 347, the successful bowler being Aniket.
The twin blows by Aniket at the fag end of the day’s play meant Uttarakhand trailed the visitors by a huge margin of 313 runs with just one wicket remaining.
While Yuvraj hit 16 fours and six sixes during his stay in the middle, Aniket and Ajay Singh were the most successful bowlers for Rajasthan, sharing seven wickets between them.
Earlier, on day two, Mahipal Lomror smashed his way to an unbeaten 300 off 360 balls after Kartik Sharma’s 113.
Brief scores:
In Dehradun: Rajasthan 1st innings 660/7 declared vs Uttarakhand 1st innings 347/9 in 100 overs (Yuvraj Chaudhary batting 144; Aniket Choudhary 4/79, Kukna Ajay Singh 3/80).
In Nagpur: Gujarat 1st innings 343 all out vs Vidarbha 1st innings 512/8 in 148 overs (Danish Malewar 115, Karun Nair 123, Akshay Wadkar not out 104; Tejas Patel 3/79).
In Dharamsala: 85 and 334 vs Himachal Pradesh 1st innings 436/9. Himachal won by innings and 17 runs.
In Hyderabad: Hyderabad 1st innings 301 all out vs Andhra 1st innings 448/9 in 143 overs (Shaik Rasheed 203, Karan Shinde 109; Anikethreddy 4/137).
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