Madhya Pradesh leads Vidarbha 170 (Nair 63, Avesh 4-49) by 123 runs after
Madhya Pradesh made an early lead of 47 for 1 (Mantri 26*, Umesh 1-18) with six
wickets for 36 runs.
The first day of the Ranji Trophy semi-final between Madhya Pradesh and
Vidarbha in Nagpur was dominated by Avesh Khan's four-wicket haul. The MP
quicks raced through Vidarbha to bowl them out for 170 after being asked to
bowl. MP was down 123 runs at the close of the day, 47 for 1.
Avesh made early inroads by cleaning up opener Dhruv Shorey
for a 12-ball 13 in the seventh over. Atharva Taide, Shorey's opening partner,
got off to a decent start hitting eight boundaries in his 63-ball stay. But his
stay was short-lived after he nicked one to the wicketkeeper off Venkatesh
Iyer's medium pace for 39, in the 22nd over. Aman Mokhade survived 75
deliveries but fell to Avesh six overs later.
Vidarbha then suffered a collapse, going from 101 for 2 to 137 for 8, losing six wickets for just 36 runs. Overall, MP pacers accounted for nine of the ten wickets on Saturday with Kulwant Kehjroliya and Iyer scalping two each while Anubhav Agarwal took one. Karun Nair smashed nine fours in his 63 off 105 balls thanks to his resistance. Vidarbha passed 150 thanks to his 33-run ninth-wicket partnership with Umesh Yadav (0), but they only managed to survive 56.3 overs when left-arm spinner Kumar Karthikeya claimed the final wicket to limit Vidarbha to a below-par total.
Yash Dubey, the first batsman for MP, was out early after being caught behind for an 11 from 22 balls at Umesh's pace. MP was well-positioned going into day two as wicketkeeper Himanshu Mantri and Harsh Gawli both finished the day undefeated at stumps with scores of 26 and 10, respectively.
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