Irani Cup 2019, ROI vs Vidarbha, Day 2, Review: Vidarbha's lower order fights back to bring the deficit down

After bowling Rest of India (ROI) out for 330 in the last over of play on day-1, the Vidarbha batsmen took guard on the second day. The openers added 50 runs together for the first wicket before Krishnappa Gowtham drew the first blood to dismiss Faiz Fazal for 27 runs. Atharwa Taide also got out for just 15 runs. But Sanjay Raghunath and Ganesh Satish put up a good partnership after the first two wickets fell.

Sanjay stretched his score to 65 before he hit one straight to the fielder at short cover. It was an extremely soft dismissal bringing an end to a promising inning. Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, the same bowler who dismissed Sanjay, also accounted for the wicket of Satish. An arm-ball that he bowled skidded through and wrapped him on the pads. Thus, he was judged LBW for 48 runs.

Who will take the first innings lead?

At 168/5 at one point in time and then 226/6, Vidarbha looked to be in a lot of trouble. But Akshay Wadkar came to the rescue with an unbeaten half-century. He struck 9 fours in his innings and is going strong at one end. He along with the other batsmen in the lower order, helped the team get back into the game.

The deficit is not only 85 runs for Vidarbha and they will be looking to get as close as possible to ROI’s first innings total. The game seems to be evenly poised at the moment with both the teams battling hard to gain an upper hand. Only the third day of play will answer all the questions and decide which team will dominate.

Brief Scores:

Rest of India, 1st Innings: 330/10 in 89.4 overs (Hanuma Vihari 114, Mayank Agarwal 95; Aditya Sarwate 3/99)

Vidarbha, 1st Innings: 245/6 in 90 overs (Sanjay Raghunath 65, Akshay Wadkar 50*, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 2/66)

Match Situation: Rest of India trail by 85 runs.

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