Dehradun: Weather and Himachal Pradesh middle-order batters, Akash Vasisht and Rishi Dhawan, continued to frustrate hosts Uttarakhand’s push towards victory on day three of the Ranji Trophy Group A match with the visitors reaching 327 for four at stumps.
After being bundled out for just 49 in the first innings and staring at an innings defeat following Uttarakhand’s 336, Himachal have made amends in the second innings by wiping out the deficit and also taking a small 40-run lead.
For the visitors, Vasisht and Dhawan continued from where they had left off on Wednesday on 277 for 4, with the former just eight runs short of his century, while Dhawan completed his half century in the 14 overs that were possible on Thursday due to bad light.
Himachal are still not out of the woods as a flurry of early wickets on the last day of the match on Friday will be enough to send them hurtling towards defeat.
Starting the day 10 runs short of wiping out Uttarakhand’s first-innings deficit, the two batters concentrated on the task at hand, grafting for 14 overs and adding 50 valuable runs to their overnight score.
Their partnership has so far fetched 144 runs and the duo could well be Himachal’s saviours if they manage to negotiate the tricky first session on day four. Vasisht added 19 runs to his overnight score of 73 to be unbeaten on 92, while Dhawan, unbeaten on 32 on Wednesday, completed his half century and remained not out on 57.
If Vasisht manages to reach the century mark on Friday, the left-hand batter would have scored his third first-class ton, while if Dhawan, a former India player, achieves the mark, it will be the veteran cricketer’s fifth first-class ton.
Brief scores: At Dehradun: Himachal Pradesh 49 and 327/4 in 90 overs (Akash Vasisht 92 n.o., Rishi Dhawan 57 n.o.) versus Uttarakhand 336 in 75.4 overs.
At Cuttack: Haryana 338 and 119/1 in 37 overs (Yuvraj Singh 38, Ankit Kumar 59 n.o.) versus Odisha 414 in 128.5 overs (Anurag Sarangi 63, Shantanu Mishra 60, Subhranshu Senapati 63, Kartik Biswal 101, Suryakant Pradhan 60; Yuzvendra Chahal 3/107). Haryana lead by 43 runs.
At Sovima: Nagaland 166 and 123 (Karan Lal 5/47, Shahbaz Ahmed 3/38) lost to Bengal 450/4 decl by an innings and 161 runs. At Vadodara: Uttar Pradesh 258 and 177 (Dhruv Jurel 50; Ninad Rathva 5/56) versus Baroda 249 and 72/4 (Saurabh Kumar 2/29). Baroda trail by 115 runs. —PTI