Ajinkya Rahane slams fifty, Mumbai bag three points

Veteran India batsman Ajinkya Rahane struck his first fifty of the Ranji Trophy season as his 56 not out helped Mumbai bag three points by virtue of their first innings lead over hosts Chhattisgarh in their Ranji Trophy Group lsquoBrsquo match here on MondayResuming at their overnight score of 971 with an overall 98 run lead Mumbai declared their second innings at 2536 as both skippers Rahane and Amandeep Khare agreed for a draw before the tea breakFor the home side leftarm spinner Ajay Mandal returned with 563 but that was not enough to bowl Mumbai outAlso Read ldquoDefinitely the future of India is very bright coach Kanitkar after loss vs AUSThe sidelined India batterrsquos previous scores in this year Ranji Trophy has been 0 0 16 8 9 and 1 This was his first fifty in nine innings The Mumbai skipper scored 78 against Tripura in the Vijay Hazare Trophy last DecemberKerala crush BengalIn Thumba Kerala veteran allrounder Jalaj Saxena grabbed a match haul of 13 wickets on a rankturner as Kerala crushed Bengal by 109 runs to taste their first win of the Ranji Trophy seasonThe win propelled Kerala 14 to third place in the Group lsquoBrsquo table behind leaders Mumbai 30 and Andhra 25 This was Bengalrsquos second successive defeat of the season as the last editionrsquos runnersup slipped to sixth spot and their knockout qualification hopes are as good as over Bengal had endured an innings defeat to Mumbai at home in their previous outingPandey scalps nineIn Surat Railways leftarm spinner Akash Pandey achieved a rare feat as he took nine wickets for 71 runs in Goarsquos second innings in a stunning bowling show to singlehandedly power his side to a 63run win in Group lsquoCrsquoPandey dismissed eight Goa batters on the final day after taking the wicket of opener Amogh Desai on Sunday He bowled 262 overs in total in Goarsquos second inningsOnly two playersmdashPremangsu Chatterjee of Bengal and Pradeep Sunderam of Rajasthanmdashhave picked all 10 wickets in one innings of a Ranji Trophy match Chatterjee achieved the feat in a Ranji match against Assam in 1957 while Sunderam did the same in against Vidarbha in 1985Also Read ldquoI think probably it affected my family a little bit more Maxwell opens up about his night party incidentChasing 306 for a win Goa were all out for 242 in 652 overs Railways walked away with six points while Goa got noneKarnataka earn three pointsWith just one round of matches left in the group league Karnataka who got three points on the basis of first innings lead in the drawn match against Tamil Nadu in Chennai are in top spot with 24 points in Group lsquoCrsquoTamil Nadu are second with 22 points and Gujarat in third with 19Chasing a target of 355 TN could only manage 338 for 8 in 105 overs Baba Indrajith was run out just two runs short of a century while Pradosh Ranjan Paul and Vijay Shankar chipped in with 74 and 60 respectively They lost three quick wickets towards the end to fall short of the target after beginning the day at 36 for 1This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever