Finally, after 3 inspections and delay of 6 hours and 15 minutes, we got some action in Greater Noida in which we saw the local boy Kuldeep Yadav once again toppling the opposition batting line up by trapping the batsman in his spin web. As reported yesterday, the first session of the game was an obvious wash out due to wet outfield and dap conditions.
The first inspection took place at 3: 30 P.M., umpires were not convinced by the conditions and delayed called for another inspection at 5:00 P.M. Meanwhile the grounds men laid another strip of the grass so as to make the ground prepared as soon as possible. At 5:00 P.M. umpires again stepped on the field, the scenes were same as still there were few wet patches which made umpire call for another inspection at 6:00 P.M.
Finally, the umpires seemed to be satisfied with the conditions and called for a start at 8:P.M. Just as the players was ready to step into the playing area another rain arrived here which irked the players but it soon vanished after causing a halt of another 15 minutes.
After a wait of 375 minutes, we got some action.
Gambhir and Agarwal started where they left, busy running between wickets and hitting boundaries on few occasions. Both the batsmen were on the road of scoring respective hundreds before Nathu proved to be a speed breaker for Gambhir as he trapped him in front of stumps at a score of 77. Gambhir’s wicket marked the fall of India Blue inning as soon after he left, Kuldeep Yadav spun a spin web and grappled every succeeding batsman in that trap.
It looked like we are watching scenes of the last match as again the batsmen were not able to see the spinning pin spherical object. The ball was turning like a top and batsmen were dancing to its tune. Kuldeep pouched the wickets of next 4 batsmen namely Baba Aprajith, Mayank Agarwal, Surya Kumar Yadav and Karn Sharma. Agarwal missed his second first century as he left his crease and Kona Bharat was smart enough to dislodge the balls in time.
India Blue is batting on a total of 200/5. They would still like to 100-150 runs to their total to come close near to 350. The rain threats still loom over the game for next two days.