The day would have been shared between both teams had Ishant Sharma not uprooted the stumps of Abu Nechim on the second delivery of the penultimate over of the day to bring an end to the day 1 of the Ranji Trophy game between Assam and Delhi.
Sun was shining over the head of the players, with all of them finding it difficult to sustain under the direct heat, the results of which were seen later in the evening in the form of a dropped catch and few fumbles by the wicketkeeper.
Still, Delhi was able to get over Assam in the familiar conditions and kept their opposition on a low score of 224 for seven. All the batsmen got good starts but Gokul Sharma, the skipper, was the pick of the batsmen. He tested Delhi’s young pace attack and kept them in search of wickets.
Ishant Sharma, the skipper, was doing his job of coming down the pitch, trying to sledge the batsman but every time, Gokul came up with solid defensive shots in reply. The only way Delhi could have got him was through some help from the track and in the end, it was a delivery which kept low from Kulwant Khejroliya that uprooted the stumps of the batsman.
Delhi grabbed two wickets in the final session of the day, to make a comeback in the game and skipper would be happy with seven wickets, despite the home side missing a chance to get all the ten wickets.
Brief Scores –
Group A
Scorecard: Assam 224/7 (Swarupam Purkayatha 57*, Gokul Sharma 51; Ishant Sharma 3-31) vs Delhi at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi
Scorecard: Hyderabad vs Maharashtra ( the First day washed out due to rain) at Gymkhana ground in Hyderabad.
Scorecard: Railways 182/10 (Ashish Yadav 53*; Ankit Rajpoot 3-30) vs UP 9/0 at Ekana International Cricket Stadium in Uttar Pradesh
Group B
Rajasthan 249/4 (Robin Bist 105*; Mohammed Mudhasir 3-66) vs Jammu and Kashmir at Sawai Man Singh Stadium, Jaipur
Saurashtra 271/7 (Prerak Mankad 68; Ashish Hooda 4-59) vs Haryana at Chaudhary Bansi Lal Stadium in Haryana
Jharkhand 200/9 (Ishan Kishan 45; Jalaj Saxena 6-50) vs Kerala at Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram
Group C
Madhya Pradesh 268/5 (Devender Bundela 99; Shubham Sharma 88*; Atit Sheth 2-51) vs Baroda at Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore
Scorecard: Tamil Nadu 176 (Baba Aprajit 51; Bhargav Bhatt 4-52) vs Andhra 8/0 at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai
Scorecard: Odisha vs Tripura ( the First day washed out due to rain) at Vikas Cricket Ground, Cuttack
Group D
Scorecard: Bengal 341/3 (Sudip Chatterjee 114*; Sachidanand Pandey 2-36) vs Services at Palam A stadium in New Delhi
Chhattisgarh 189/5 (Mohammad Kaif 49*; Darshan Wagha Misal 2-15) vs Goa at Goa Cricket Association Academy Ground in Porvorim
Himachal Pradesh 459/2 (Prashant Chopra 271* Paras Dogra 99*; Sandeep Sharma 1-76) vs Punjab at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala