Ranji Trophy: Bowlers put reigning champions MP in command against Andhra

Defending champions Madhya Pradesh bounced back in contention on the third day of their Ranji Trophy quarterfinal on Thursday against Andhra despite conceding a huge first innings lead thanks to pacer Avesh Khans exploitsSet a winning target of 245 MP ended day three at 58 for no loss after bundling out the opponents for 93 in their second inningsAndhra skipper Hanuma Vihari like in the first innings when he returned to bat braving a wrist injury batted lefthanded to score 15 coming in at No11He swatted three fours including a reverse sweep but could not do much as the team collapsed to 93 all out in 323 oversEarlier resuming at the overnight score of 144 for 4 MP was bowled out for 228 with leftarm mediumpacer Prithvi Raj Yarra picking up five wicketsPrithvi Raj added the scalps of Harsh Gawli 1 Saransh Jain 8 Avesh Khan 15 and Kumar Kartikeya 24 4 fours to finish with superb figures of 5 for 26Also Read An infamous season alrightThe home team looked in danger of being dismissed below 200 before Kartikeya and Avesh stitched a 48run stand for the ninth wicket to stretch the score to 228With a big lead of 151 Andhra was expected to bat well in the second innings to put MP out of contention However the MP bowlers ran through the visiting teams batting unit in just 323 oversAvesh bowling with a lot of fire and a big heart set the tone by removing opener C R Gnaneshwar 1 in the second over having him caught by Yash DubeyFellow opening batter Abhishek Reddy 1 fell in the fourth over trapped LBWA 37run stand for the third wicket between Nitish Kumar Reddy 14 and Ashwin Hebbar 35 65 balls 4x4s 1x6 followedOnce Gaurav Yadav 310 removed Nitish and Kumar Kartikeya 241 got the key wicket of Ricky Bhui 1 the centurion in the first innings things went downhill for AndhraThe MP bowlers kept picking up wickets at regular intervals and the Andhra innings ended at 93Set a target of 245 the home team was 58 for no loss in 16 overs requiring 187 more to advance to the semifinalsOpening batters Yash Dubey 24 batting and Himanshu Mantri 31 batting got off to a solid start as MP looked to cap a splendid comeback engineered by Avesh amp CoBrief scores Andhra 379 all out in 1271 overs Ricky Bhui 149 Karan Shinde 110 Anubhav Agarwal 472 and 93 all out in 323 overs Ashwin Hebbar 35 Avesh Khan 424 Gaurav Yadav 310 vs Madhya Pradesh 228 all out in 691 overs Shubham Sharma 51 Aditya Srivastava 31 Y Prithvi Raj 526 K V Sasikanth 349 and 58 for no loss in 16 oversThis 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