Duleep Trophy 2016, Match 2, Day 1 Review: India Blue end on high after rains force early stumps

Rains continued to spoil cricketing action after the day one of the Duleep Trophy match between India Blue and India Red met with a premature end today. Only 34.2 overs of play was possible today after India Red won the toss and chose to bowl first.

The short day’s play was a comfortable outing for the India Blue side as they had no troubles in playing out the fiery bowling attack led by Nathu Singh.

Openers Mayank Agarwal and Gautam Gambhir struck fluent half-centuries to take India Blue to a comfortable 105 run at stumps. India Red skipper Yuvraj Singh looked in an experimental mood and used as many as 6 bowlers today.

Rains didn’t come as a surprise as it was predicted to shower before the start of the game. The pitch too was a different one and looked bit darker than the previous match.

The day began with Gambhir and Agarwal playing India Red opening bowling pair of Nathu Singh and Pradeep Sangwan with a cautious approach. There was no hurry shown by the duo. Nathu Singh created troubles for the duo and challenged their techniques of playing bouncers but after his initial burst, both seemed comfortable.

Soon, after seeing both the batsmen play his fast bowlers easily, Yuvraj Singh quickly turned to his spinning pair of Kuldeep Yadav and Akshay Wakhre. But, the spinners too couldn’t make any significant impact.

Yuvi kept making changes with a hope a breakthrough but none of his moves paid off. Just one opportunity was created in the day’s play when Agarwal edged one to slip off Sangwan’s bowling in the 4th over. Fortunately, the ball didn’t carry. Eventually, rains began pouring heavily and the day had to be called off.

India Red picked up an emphatic 219-run win over India Green in the opening encounter