da winzada777： Railways have taken the vital first innings lead and consolidatedtheir position thanks to an unbeaten 72 run partnership for the ninthwicket between Murali Kartik (47*) and Kulamani Parida (24*) to be on318/8 at the end of the second day in the
Santhosh S20-Apr-2001Railways have taken the vital first innings lead and consolidatedtheir position thanks to an unbeaten 72 run partnership for the ninthwicket between Murali Kartik (47*) and Kulamani Parida (24*) to be on318/8 at the end of the second day in the Ranji Trophy final playedagainst Baroda at the Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation Ground,Baroda, on Friday.Railways have gone ahead by 75 runs and still have two first inningswicket intact. Baroda fought hard to reduce Railways to 246/8 and werelooking at a possibility of batting again and scoring heavily to set afourth innings target. The pitch is taking a lot of turn and bounceand could well make a lot of difference on day four and five. As ofnow, it has been the faster men who have made the difference on apitch which still has something in it for the quickies.Railways lost the wicket of TP Singh, given out lbw off the bowling ofAP Bhoite. Singh , who was unbeaten on 60 overnight, could only addseven more runs to his personal score. Sanjay Bangar and Yerre Gowdaput together a valuable partnership of 88 runs for the third wicket in30 overs. Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan were too wayward in the firsthalf of the day.Baroda claimed six Railways wickets for just 50 runs. Bangar (62) wascaught by HR Jadhav off the bowling of Zaheer Khan. He faced 196 ballsstriking six boundaries and two sixes. Skipper Abhay Sharma (8),Shreyas Khanolkar (4) and S Sahu (0) fell to the pressure applied bythe Baroda team. Gowda who played yet another patient knock, made 65runs off 143 balls with the help of nine boundaries. He wasbrilliantly caught by Jacob martin at first slip off the last ballbefore the Tea-break bowled by left-arm spinner Valmik Buch.Soon after the Tea interval, Zaheer Khan trapped Sudhir Wankhede (14)in front of the wicket. Railways at that stage were ahead by justthree runs with respect to the Baroda’s first innings score of 243 allout. Rakesh Patel limped off the ground with a leg injury, leavingZaheer Khan and Pathan to do all the fast bowling. Murali Kartik andParida were all at sea against some purposeful bowling, but held on todo their job. Baroda bowler’s failed to keep a good line and lengthand were subsequently punished by the tailenders. Kartik who shufflesaround in his crease and could have been dismissed as he kept playingand missing at balls outside the off stump. He has struck four strokespast the ropes so far in his unbeaten innings. Parida too grew inconfidence as he stayed for more time in the middle. It would only beappropriate to blame the Baroda bowlers than give credit to theRailways tailenders.