Delhi descended into hall of infamy on Saturday as five of their top six batters got out for ducks, making the scoreboard at the PCA Stadium unsightly in a Ranji Trophy Group D match against Uttarakhand here.
Continuing their winter of woes, Delhi’s second innings began in the worst possible manner as their first four batters were back in the dressing room without opening their account.
Skipper Himmat Singh, however, averted a bigger disaster for Delhi with a spectacular, counterattacking 109 and, in the company of Lakshay Thareja (36 batting), lifted the team to 145/5 after they had lost five wickets with just 11 runs on the board in their second dig.
Vaibhav Kandpal, slotted at number six in the Delhi batting line-up, too was dismissed for nought.
Playing the lone ranger, Himmat found the fence 16 times and cleared it once while getting his runs off just 91 balls.
The duo of Himmat and Thareja added 134 runs for the sixth wicket, helping Delhi avoid more embarrassment a day after the team’s best batter Ayush Badoni, who is going through a rough patch, was asked to stay back in the team hotel at the behest of powerful officials, who wanted to teach the “IPL star” a lesson.
Doing the bulk of the damage for Uttarakhand was Deepak Dhapola (4/43), who bagged a hat-trick to leave Delhi tottering at zero for three.
Thanks to Himmat and Thareja’s efforts, Delhi were ahead by 53 runs at stumps on the second day.
This was after Uttarakhand batters responded with 239 in reply to Delhi’s first-innings total of 147.
Resuming on their overnight score of 98 for four, Uttarakhand found their man in the seasoned Aditya Tare, who top-scored for the team with 83 off 114 balls while hitting 10 boundaries.
Tare found an able ally in Swapnil Singh, who chipped in with an useful 47 as Uttarakhand ended their first innings with a significant lead of 92 runs, opening up possibilities for an outright win with plenty of time left in the match.
Avneesh Sudha (64) could add just nine runs to his overnight score of 55 before being bowled by pacer Navdeep Saini, who was Delhi’s most successful bowler on the day with figures of 4/57 in 15 overs, while off-spinner Hrithik Shokeen picked 3/57.
Brief scores:
Delhi: 147 and 145/5 in 33 overs (Himmat Singh 109 batting; Deepak Dhapola 4/43)
Uttarakhand 1st innings: 239 all out in 69.1 overs (Aditya Tare 83; Navdeep Saini 4/57).
At Cuttack
Odisha: 138 and 157/3 in 44 overs (Sandeep Pattnaik 78, Govinda Poddar 41)
Himachal Pradesh 1st innings: 176 all out in 62.4 overs (Biplab Samantray 3/30).
At Puducherry:
Madhya Pradesh: 238 and 49/2 in 23 overs
Puducherry 1st innings: 100 all out in 55.4 overs (Saransh Jain 5/22, Kumar Kartikeya 4/32).
At Vadodara
Jammu and Kashmir 1st innings: 457 all out in 122.1 overs (Vivrant Sharma 139, Shubham Pundir 172; Atit Sheth 5/88)
Baroda 1st innings: 177/4 in 49.3 overs (Jyotsnil Singh 79; Umar Nazir Mir 3/39).
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