Mumbai (90 ov) 248/5
Madhya Pradesh
Mumbai chose to bat.
Day 1 – Stumps
The Ranji Trophy finale for the year 2021-22 is finally happening. Mumbai is chasing their 42nd trophy while Madhya Pradesh is hoping to win their first tournament as a state team. Game Day 1 saw some exciting cricket and here’s an update about it.
Mumbai after winning the toss decided to bat, and was cruising at 147 for 2 when they lost a number of wickets. After having a solid opening partnership between Captain Prithwi Shaw and Yashaswi Jaiswal, there not much seemed to go in Mumbai’s favor as the team then had a mini choke. The team lost 4 consecutive wickets at regular intervals which didn’t help them. With Sarfaraz Khan, who scored the most runs in the competition, remaining on the crease at 40, they finished the day on 247 for 5. In their attempt to increase their first innings score, he was joined by all-rounder Shams Mulani.
Yashaswi continued his dream form and scored another half-century. He was stopped by Anubhav Agarwal on 74. Prithwi Shaw who had affirmed that his focus, for now, is only on winning the cup and not on Test recall missed his half-century by just 3 runs as he got dismissed on 47. Sarfaraz is continuing to perform his best and keeping Mumbai’s hopes alive to build a good score.
Madhya Pradesh used just four bowlers on Day 1 and apart from Gaurav Yadav, all of them at least got a wicket. Saransh Jain and Anubhav Agarwal grabbed 2 wickets each and helped their team get back into the game which for once seemed to be slipping from their hands.
What happens on Day 2 will be interesting as Madhya Pradesh just need a couple of more wickets to ensure they are not trailing a huge target. As of now they are in good place and Mumbai need to stretch the innings as much as they can.