Jaiswal’s century in second innings as well, rest of India in strong position
Strong contender for a place in the Indian team, Yashasvi Jaiswal continued his scintillating form with a century in the second innings as Rest of India set Madhya Pradesh a tough target of 437 in the Irani Trophy cricket tournament here on Saturday. Jaiswal, who scored 213 in the first innings, scored a brilliant 144 in the second innings as Rest of India managed to score 246 despite the failure of other batsmen. Rest of India had scored 484 in the first innings, in reply to which last season’s Ranji champions Madhya Pradesh were bowled out for 294.
Madhya Pradesh has scored 81 runs for two wickets in its second innings till the end of the fourth day’s play in front of a difficult target and is still 356 runs short of the target. His responsibility is on captain Himanshu Mantri, who is playing after scoring 51 runs. Harish Gawli standing with him at the other end has scored 15 runs. Madhya Pradesh’s second innings did not get off to a good start as they lost the wicket of opener Arham Akeel on the second ball of the innings, who was trapped leg before by fast bowler Mukesh Kumar. Spinner Saurabh Kumar then bowled Shubham Sharma (13) and sent him to the pavilion.
After this Himanshu and Harish did not let the team suffer any setback in the remaining 12 overs of the day. The hero of the fourth day was again Jaiswal, who despite falling wickets from the other side, not only managed one end but also scored runs with ease. He faced 157 balls in his innings and hit 16 fours and three sixes. Rest of India extended their innings to 85 for one in the morning but opener Abhimanyu Easwaran (28) was dismissed after adding only two runs to his yesterday’s score.
After this, Baba Indrajit (00), Yash Dhull (00) and Upendra Yadav (13) also returned to the pavilion early, which made the score 122 runs for five wickets. After this, Atit Seth (30) supported Jaiswal for some time. Both of them shared a 61-run partnership for the sixth wicket. After the break of this partnership, only Pulkit Narang (15 not out) was able to make some contribution. Jaiswal returned to the pavilion as the eighth wicket after which it did not take long for the rest of India’s innings to collapse. For Madhya Pradesh, Avesh Khan, Saransh Jain, Shubham Sharma and Ankit Kushwaha took two wickets each.
