Ranji QF: Fiery Shardul Thakur flattens Maharashtra to put Mumbai on top

Young Mumbai pacer Shardul Thakur produced an incisive fourwicket haul after the home teams tail wagged merrily to put the defending champions in total command of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Maharshtra here todayThakur bent his back on the bouncy Wankhede wicket and produced fiery spells backed up by a very attacking umbrella field behind the wicket on both sides to shake up the Maharashtra batting line up after Mumbai ran up a huge first innings total of 402Thakur who went into his sixth game of the season with 21 wickets under his belt ended the day with highly impressive figures of 4 for 62 that shook up Maharashtra who were reduced to 24 for 3 before recovering to 219 for 7 at stumps on day two of the fiveday gameThe visitors score was mainly built around the 115run fourth wicket partnership in 146 balls between topscorer Ankit Bawne 84 and Kedar Jadhav 51 whose dismissals within the space of half an hour post tea spelt further trouble for MaharashtraThe batsmen holding fort at close were Shrikant Mundhe 14 and Akshay Darekar 16Maharashtra were facing an uphill task as they were 183 runs behind the home team with little batting left to come tomorrowThe 22yearold Thakur in only his second season for the 40time champions packed off openers Harshad Khadiwale and rival captain Rohit Motwani cheaply in the first spell of four overs to push Maharashtra on the backfoot very earlyMotwani was leg before to a swinging full toss in the bowlers first over and then he had Khadiwale the tournaments highest scorer with 930 runs in eight games in the league phase caught at gullyThakur then came back after tea to grab two more wickets in his third spell including that of topscorer Bawne who was lucky to survive a chance in the slip cordon off his bowling on 5 and then got another reprieve after he was bowled off a noball by the same bowlerThis is Thakurs third haul of four wickets in only his 11th first class gameIn between these wickets Mumbai captain and India pace spearhead Zaheer Khan took the very important wicket of Under19 Asia Cup winning captain Vijay Zol who looked pretty confident and leftarm spinner Vishal Dabholkar sent back Jadhav caught batpad behind the wicket by a diving wicketkeeper Aditya TareZols departure put Maharashtra in deep rut before Jadhav playing cautiously and the more attacking Bawne produced a partnership that stemmed the rot and took the score to 139 when the former got outJadhav batted for 108 minutes and hit 9 fours in his 66ball knockThen Bawne despite two lucky breaks earlier in his innings needlessly tried to try and cut a rising ball going well over his head from Thakur to be caught behind He faced 113 balls in his 130minute essay and struck 12 fours and a sixThe departure of these two set batsmen within the space of 44 balls left Maharashtra struggling at 170 for 6Later Javed Khan the third seam bowler in the Mumbai attack sent back Chirag Khurana for his first wicket with the visitors total nine short of 200Mundhe and Darekar then managed to stay put till close to carry on the fight tomorrowIn the morning overnight unbeaten batsmen Iqbal Abdulla 49 not out and Zaheer Khan 39 kept Maharashtra on the field for the entire first session after Mumbai resumed at 306 for 7The eighth wicket duo added 62 runs in quick time with Zaheer slamming off spin bowler Khurana for 14 runs in one over with the help of one six and two foursZaheer was finally out edging Shrikant Munde to the slip cordon after striking 4 fours and one six in 61 ballsAbdulla then ran out of partners to remain unconquered one short of 50 after having faced 107 balls in his threehour innings when Mumbais first innings folded up on the stroke of lunchMumbais last three wickets added 102 runs Samad Fallah was the most successful bowler for Maharashtra with figures of 4 for 103 while Anupam Sanklecha 3 for 77 Mundhe 2 for 85 and Darekar 1 for 60 shared the other wickets