Sanjay keeps Railways on right track

By Our Special Correspondent

MOHALI, APRIL 6: Sanjay Bangar's unbeaten 77 kept Railways on the right track and foiled Punjab's bid to make an immediate comeback into the Ranji Trophy semifinal at the PCA Stadium here on Friday.

Railways finished the second day at 203 for three and looked well poised to take control. This steady progress after 86 overs, spread over 391 minutes, made Punjab's first innings total of 249 look increasingly small. Punjab may have succeeded in ensuring that there was no big partnership but Railways still had reasons to be pleased with the day's work.

After allowing an addition of just two runs, Railways claimed the last two Punjab wickets in just nine deliveries this morning. For the record, medium-pacer Harvinder Singh added one more wicket to his tally and finished with five for 66.

In Railways' reply, Punjab's new-ball bowlers Gagandeep Singh and Vineet Kumar could not justify the faith of their team management in choosing a grassy surface for this key encounter. Both failed to make the Railways batsmen play more deliveries. If Gagandeep struggled all day to get his line right, Vineet was guilty of bowling all over, apart from seven no-balls and three wides.

The biggest gainer of this wayward new-ball bowling was Bangar. Willing to play the `waiting-game', Bangar read the pace of the pitch correctly and did the needful. With the ball coming slowly off the surface, Bangar's stroke-selection was commendable. With Gagandeep and Vineet trying to generate more and more pace, Bangar had no problems in driving and pulling with aplomb. Besides some flowing drives, Bangar also managed to find the gaps on either side of the wicket. He has so far hit 12 boundaries during his patient stay of 391 minutes.

Even as Bangar was in the process of building his innings, opening partner Amit Pagnis made a brisk 27 with six hits to the fence. The pair had put on 46 runs before Pagnis' unintended pull, off Vineet, landed in the hands of substitute Amit Kakaria at fine leg.

With one-drop Tejinder Pal Singh, Bangar had another stand of 52 runs when the former finally ran out of luck after 118 minutes.

The left-handed Tejinder, who owed his prolonged stay to Gagandeep for dropping a return catch, could add only 12 more runs before his miscued shot ended up as a simple catch at point.

The wicket of Tejinder was a just reward for Sodhi. On paper, all Punjab bowlers carry flattering bowling analysis but only Sodhi looked like getting wickets.

His hard work again met with success when Yere Goud, who is enjoying his best first-class season, was adjudged leg-before for 25.

Sodhi, apart from consistently generating good pace, kept the batsmen guessing with his probing line around the off-stump.

Strangely, the termination of the Bangar-Yere Goud stand, worth 56 runs, saw the Punjab bowlers waiting for the second new-ball to cause more damage. But in the 14 overs that followed, new-man Abhay Sharma not only settled down but also went for his strokes.

Eventually, when Punjab took the new ball at the end of 80 overs, its bowlers bowled a disappointing length.

With Railways happy to wait for the runs, the onus is now on Punjab to make things happen on Saturday.

Only a vastly- improved bowling performance from Punjab can prevent the visiting team from getting too far.

The scores:

Punjab - 1st innings: Munish Sharma c Goud b Harvinder 0, Ravneet Ricky c and b Harvinder 33, Vikram Rathour c Abhay Sharma b Bangar 44, Ankur Kakkar lbw b Harvinder 53, Pankaj Dharmani b Parida 18, Reetinder Singh Sodhi b Parida 15, Sanjay Mahajan c Abhay b Harvinder 12, Sandeep Sawal b Tejinder 28, Gagandeep Singh c Abhay Sharma b Harvinder 16, Vineet Kumar (not out) 1, Babloo Kumar c Parida b Zakir Hussain 1, Extras (b-5, lb-9, nb- 11, w-3) 28, Total 249.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-76, 3-91, 4-114, 5-130, 6-159, 7-220, 8- 247, 9-248.

Railways bowling: Harvinder Singh 21-5- 66-5, Zakir Hussain 19.3- 6-38-1, Sanjay Bangar 15-2-57-1, Tejinder Pal Singh 6-0-15-1, Kulamani Parida 25-8-49-2, Shreyas Khanolkar 5-3-10-0.

Railways - 1st innings: Amit Pagnis c (sub.) Amit Kakaria b Vineet 27, Sanjay Bangar (batting) 77, Tejinder Pal Singh c Babloo b Sodhi 26, Yere Goud lbw b Sodhi 25, Abhay Sharma (batting) 29, Extras (b-5, 1b-2, nb-9, w-3) 19, Total (for three wickets) 203.

Fall of wickets: 1-46, 2-98, 3-154

Punjab bowling: Gagandeep Singh 17-6-43-0, Vineet Kumar 20-2-58- 1, Reetinder Sodhi 22-8-46-2, Babloo Kumar 10-6-10-2, Sanjay Mahajan 6-4-7-0, Sandeep Sanwal 11-4-32-0.

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