A round-up of the Ranji Trophy 2015-16 Group A matches played on December 3, 2015

ESPNcricinfo staff03-Dec-2015
ScorecardFile photo: Dishant Yagnik took Rajasthan home with an unbeaten 16•Sakshi Telugu DailyRajasthan stole a slender two-wicket win against Odisha by chasing down 230 in the last innings on the third day in Jaipur. Rajasthan turned things around despite being routed for 51 in their first innings, which is the second-lowest first-innings total to win a Ranji Trophy match.Rajasthan were 79 for 2 overnight, still 151 away, and lost Puneet Yadav (59) after he scored only three runs on the third morning. They lost two more wickets – Tanveer-Ul-Haq (21) and Ashok Menaria (20) – in quick succession and were struggling at 118 for 5 before Rajat Bhatia (31) and Siddharth Dobal rescued them with a stand of 76 runs to take them close to 200. However, Bhatia was dismissed by Basant Mohanty and Dobal went on to register a fifty before he too was removed by Mohanty for a run-a-ball 52. From 210 for 7, Rajasthan lost Aniket Choudhary too at the score of 223 but Dishant Yagnik (16*) and Pankaj Singh (8*) held their nerves to take six points.
Scorecard Right-arm seamer Mukesh Kumar, playing his third first-class match, and Pragyan Ojha shared six wickets between them to wipe Assam out for 143 in 54.4 overs. Resuming on 1 for 4, after Ashok Dinda had scythed through the top order on the second day, Assam lost Amit Verma to Ojha to 9. Tarjinder Singh, aided by contributions from Arun Karthik (30) and Syed Mohammed (31), mounted some resistance but Assam were asked to follow on.They fared much better in their second dig, reaching 72 for 2 before bad light curbed another day in Guwahati. Opener Pallav Kumar Das (28*) and Gokul Sharma (8*) stayed unbeaten after Aamir Gani dismissed Rahul Hazarika and Amit.
ScorecardRavi Jangid followed his third first-class century with figures of 4 for 44 as Haryana were bowled out for 241 and asked to follow on. Haryana’s steady opening partnership of 118 between Nitin Saini and Chaitanya Bishnoi showed only little of what was to follow.It was offspinner Akshay Wakhare who broke the stand when he got rid of Bishnoi for 47. Saini reached hid fifty but was bowled by Jangid soon after. He made light work of the middle order before Shamsher Yadav become the second half-centurion of the innings. However, Aditya Sarwate collected four wickets of his own to perform the final rites on the innings.Jangid was at it again, removing the openers in Haryana’s second innings. Saini had a good start again, but did not convert it into a big score. Mohit Hooda and Rohit Sharma managed to survive till stumps but Vidarbha are on course to seal their quarter-final spot.
ScorecardFifties from Shrikant Mundhe and Rahul Tripathi set Karnataka a target of 293 in Pune. The double-treble winning defending champions lost R Samarth to Nikit Dhumal, who took his match tally to four, but Mayank Agarwal and Robin Uthappa scored at a fairly brisk clip as Karnataka closed the day at 61 for 1 in 15 overs.Earlier, Tripathi, who started the day on 31, went onto make 78 before he was undone by S Aravind. Kedar Jhadav and Vishant More failed to build on starts but Mundhe, coming in at No.8, struck 81 off 150 balls, including seven fours and two sixes to push Maharashtra to 260. Vinay Kumar was the pick of the bowlers for Karnataka, claiming figures of 4 for 71.