Tamil Nadu pack off Punjab top-order after posting 435
During their marathon association, both Indrajith and Shankar did a lot of running, relying a lot on the singles and twos to keep the scoreboard ticking.
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SALEM: Tamil Nadu took firm control of their Ranji Trophy Group C match by packing off the Punjab top-order after big hundreds by Baba Indrajith and Vijay Shankar powered the hosts to 435 in their first innings here on Saturday.
Punjab were 141/4 at stumps on the second day, trailing by 294 runs.
Batting on 88 overnight, Shankar duly reached his century with the help of 12 fours and a six, while Indrajith went on to make 187 in 295 deliveries after resuming the day on 122.
Indrajith, who added 281 runs for the fourth wicket, found the fence 10 times and cleared it once.
During their marathon association, both Indrajith and Shankar did a lot of running, relying a lot on the singles and twos to keep the scoreboard ticking.
However, Tamil Nadu's lower-order batters failed to contribute significantly to their total after the dismissal of Shankar to off-spinner Jassinder Singh with the score reading 388 for five.
TN skipper Sai Kishore chipped in 20 before the home team's first innings came to an end in 131.4 overs.
Off-spinner Sukhwinder Singh was the most successful bowler for Punjab, finishing with figures of 4/99 in 31 overs.
There were two wickets apiece for Jassinder Singh and all-rounder Abhishek Sharma, who bowls left-arm spin.
In reply, at least three Punjab batters looked to have settled down nicely before losing their wickets.
Prabhsimran Singh was dismissed for 24, while Anmolpreet Singh and Nehal Wadhera got out after doing all the hard work, for 41 and 43 respectively.
At stumps, Mandeep Singh and wicketkeeper Anmol Malhotra were batting on 18 and 3 respectively.
Left-arm spinner Ajith Ram, who averages an exceptional 16.6 for his 46 wickets in nine matches, had Prabhsimran trapped in front of the wickets and bowled Wadhera to leave Punjab precariously placed at 131/4.
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 1st innings 435 all out in 131.4 overs (Baba Indrajith 187, Vijay Shankar 130; Sukhwinder Singh 4/99) vs Karnataka 1st innings 141/4 in 46 overs (Anmolpreet Singh 41, Nehal Wadhera 43; Ajith Ram 2/34) ahead by 294 runs.
In Agartala: Tripura: 149 and 286/9 in 70 overs (Sudip Chatterjee 95, Ganesh Satish 62; Yuvraj Singh 4/84, Himanshu Sangwan 3/55) vs Railways 1st innings 105 all out in 37.3 overs (Arindam Ghosh not out 62; Manisankar Murasingh 5/28, Bikramjit Debnath 3/16) lead by 330 runs.
In Hubballi: Chandigarh 1st innings 267 all out in 106.4 overs (Karan Kaila 79; Hardik Raj 4/56, Vijaykumar Vyshak 4/77) vs Karnataka 1st innings 268/3 in 63 overs (Manish Pandey batting 102, Mayank Agarwal 57) trail by 1 run.
In Porvorim: Goa 1st innings 317 all out in 84.2 overs (Darshan Misal 89, Mohit Redkar 80; Chintan Gaja 3/56) vs Gujarat 1st innings 281/5 in 79 overs (Priyank Panchal batting 150) ahead by 36 runs.