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Irani Cup 2016-17: Chirag Gandhi’s heroics ends Gujarat’s innings at 358 on Day 2

Gujarat won the toss and opted to bat on Day One against Rest of India in Irani Cup 2016-17 at Mumbai.

Chirag Gandhi held crucial partnerships with Manpreet Juneja, Hardik Patel and Karan Patel © IANS
Chirag Gandhi held crucial partnerships with Manpreet Juneja, Hardik Patel and Karan Patel © IANS

Gujarat ended their first innings ahead of lunch at 358 on Day Two of Irani Cup 2016-17 at Brabourne  Stadium in Mumbai. Chirag Gandhi’s heroic knock of 169 resurrected Gujarat’s innings. He smashed as many as 22 fours and 2 sixes to help Gujarat recover from the damages caused on Day One. He also built crucial partnerships with Manpreet Juneja (109) which was the highest of this innings, Karan Patel (40) and Hardik Patel (72). Apart from Gandhi, Priyank Panchal’s early cameo along with Dhruv Raval (39) and Juneja’s crucial innings (47), helped Gujarat put up a competitive score on board.

However, Rest of India (ROI) bowlers maintained pressure on Gujarat batsmen with Pankaj Singh and Siddarth Kaul sharing 9 wickets.

Day Two morning saw flow of runs for Gujarat with Gandhi continuing his run-parade. Gandhi and Hardik continued their overnight score of 136 and 9. Gandhi added 33 runs that included a six and 3 fours that took him to his best ever First-Class score of 169. Hardik complimented Gandhi at regular intervals with ones and twos. They reached 50-run stand for ninth wicket within the first 15 minutes of the game.

However, Kaul got to his fifer bagging a very important wicket of Gandhi when the Gujarat scoreboard read 337. The tail-enders did their part as Hardik and Ishwar Choudhary continued from where the game was left and added 25 runs with a six from Choudhary to take Gujarat beyond 350-run mark. Hardik was given a life when Kaul was into attack and Abhinav Mukund dropped a catch at the third slip. But it was Pankaj who ended the innings for ROI and bagged the his fourth and ROI’s final wicket of Choudhary.

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On Day One, Gandhi struck a timely, maiden first class hundred and remained unbeaten on 136 to lift newly-crowned Ranji Trophy champions Gujarat from deep trouble. At close of play Gujarat were 300 for 8. Gandhi struck 18 fours and a six off 159 deliveries he faced. However, ROI bowlers also had their day out with Pankaj and Kaul sharing 7 wickets along with part-timer Akhil Herwadkar’s crucial wicket of Juneja to break the growing partnership between himself and Gandhi.

Gujarat, who opted to bat first, were in trouble at lunch, taken at 81 for 3, after the fall of their captain Parthiv Patel for 11 and then lost Dhruv Raval soon after the break before Gandhi and Juneja got together to help Gujarat bounce back in the game with their 109 runs partnership. In the morning session, the tall Pankaj trapped opener Gohil for a duck off the sixth ball and then got rid of the other opener Panchal through a catch in the first slip.

Brief Scores: 

Gujarat 358 (Chirag Gandhi 169, Manpreet Juneja 47, Dhruv Raval 39, Priyank Panchal 30; Siddharth Kaul 5 for 86, Pankaj Singh 4 for 104, Akhil Herwadkar 1 for 13) vs Rest of India

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