Buchi Babu: Prithvi's ton goes in vain as Chhattisgarh dominate Maharashtra

CHENNAI: The spotlight was on two Maharashtra players but Chhattisgarh owned day two of the round 1 match, bowling the former all-out for 217/10 leaving them trailing by 35 runs. Prithvi Shaw opened the innings taking the crease making his maiden appearance for Maharashtra after switching from Mumbai, and Ruturaj Gaikwad, returning to bat in competitive cricket for the first time since the Indian Premier League.

Shaw made the most of the occasion, opening the innings as Maharashtra chased Chhattisgarh’s first-innings total of 252. Gaikwad, however, endured a disappointing return, dismissed for just one run. The Chennai Super Kings batter, who had suffered a hairline fracture during the IPL against Rajasthan Royals, was undone in the 23rd over when he misjudged the flight of the ball and mistimed a pull shot, which ricocheted onto his middle stump.

In contrast, Shaw anchored the innings and took the bowlers head-on, reaching a fluent century in the 45th over. He flicked Shashank Tiwari to the leg side to bring up his ton and marked the moment with a subdued celebration, raising his bat towards the dugout.

With Shaw on 99 at the other end, Siddharth Mhatre was dismissed in unusual fashion. Attempting a wild swing against Rishi Sharma, he missed completely, and the ball rolled back onto the stumps, a dismissal reminiscent of Mohammed Siraj’s misfortune in the third Test at Lord’s earlier this year.

Wickets started to topple one after the other during the afternoon session with Prithvi being removed at 111 by Shubham Agarwal and Saurabh Nawale played a solitary knock of 50 towards the end to steer the team to 217 on the board. Chhattisgarh came out in the second innings and put 43 runs on the board for the loss of two wickets to close the day's play.

BRIEF SCORES: TNCA President’s XI 274 in 67.4 overs and 131/1 in 27 overs (S Radhakrishnan 59, R Vimal Khumar 58 n.o) vs Himachal Pradesh 214 in 60.3 overs (Sidhant Purohit 45, Akash Vashisht 55)

Chhattisgarh 252 & 43/2 in 15 overs vs Maharashtra 217 in 73 overs (Prithvi Shaw 111, Saurabh Nawale 50 n.o, Varun Singh Bhuie 3/61)

Jammu and Kashmir 393/5 vs Indian Railways 221/8 in 90 overs (Ashish Singh 76, Dinesh Mor 58 n.o, Vanshaj Sharma 6/50)

Baroda 381/6 vs Odisha 352 in 89.5 overs (Swastik Samal 114, Govind Poddar 71, Sambit Baral 59, Pradip Yadav 5/90)

Mumbai 412/5 in 90 overs (Suved Parkar 72, Sarfaraz Khan 138, Aakash Parkar 90 n.o) vs TNCA XI 325/5 in 90 overs (Tushar Raheja 137, B Sachin 47, SR Athish 67, Musheer Khan 3/51)

Haryana 415/9 vs Bengal 381 in 88.4 overs (Anustup Majumdar 126, Samanta Gupta 98, Sudip Kumar 45, Sumit Kumar 5/32)

Jharkhand 176 & 132/3 in 23 overs (Shikhar Mohan 49) vs Madhya Pradesh 317/6 in 90 overs (Saksham Purohit 70, Shubham Kushwah 73, Rudransh Singh 93 n.o)

Punjab 348/5 in 90 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 69, Uday Pratap Saharan 113 n.o, Ramandeep Singh 111) vs Hyderabad 267/6 in 71 overs (M Abhirath Reddy 74 (retd hurt).