Skipper Ayush Badoni’s career-best figures of 5/69, including the prized scalp of Hyderabad captain Tilak Varma, put Delhi in line for a first-innings lead after the third day’s play in the opening group D fixture of the Ranji Trophy in Hyderabad on Friday. Replying to Delhi’s mammoth first-innings score of 529/4 declared, Hyderabad lost senior batter Rohit Rayudu off the last ball of the day to finish on 400 for 7 at stumps.

Hyderabad still need 130 runs to take the first-innings lead and while the pitch at the Next-Gen ground is conducive for batting, the hosts are only left with keeper Rahul Radesh (41 batting) along with the tail-enders.

On the day, Hyderabad batters showed a lot of intent to score 323 runs in the entire day’s play with senior opener Tanmay Agarwal scoring 132 with the help of 15 fours. He added 140 for the second wicket with Gangam Anikethreddy (87).

At one point, Hyderabad looked in control with the scorecard reading 205 for 1 before Badoni got into the act with his off-breaks.

What helped Badoni immensely was that out of the top-eight in the Hyderabad line-up, seven were left-handers and taking the ball away from southpaws and occasionally getting it to straighten after pitching did help.

He first drew Anikethreddy out of the crease with a nice drift to get him stumped and in another couple of deliveries had the team’s mainstay Tilak out. Badoni flighted one from round the wicket and the Asia Cup hero was caught plumb in front.

Once Hyderabad were down to 205 for 3, they had two successive fifty-plus stands with Agarwal holding fort at the other end.

He added 57 with Kodimela Himateja for the fourth wicket and another 65 with Radesh for the fifth wicket.

The angles that Badoni, as an off-break bowler, created for the left-handers in Hyderabad line-up became their undoing. Just as a stand was taking shape, he trapped Himateja leg-before with one that straightened.

The big wicket of Tanmay was taken by Arpit Rana, who trapped the left-handed opener leg-before.

Hyderabad would have been better off had Rohit, cousin brother of former India batter Ambati, found his defence breached by the Delhi skipper.

Auqib Nabi takes five against Mumbai

Jammu and Kashmir need 222 runs on the final day to beat a star-studded Mumbai who had a first-innings lead of 61 in the morning session only to lose some advantage getting all-out for 181 in their second innings.

At stumps, Jammu and Kashmir were 21 for 1 chasing a target of 243.

Having scored 386 in their first essay, Mumbai had bowled out Jammu and Kashmir for 325 on the third morning after the hosts started the day at 273 for 7. Skipper Paras Dogra was finally out for 144.

Tushar Deshpande (3/57) had the best figures while Shardul Thakur, Shams Mulani and Tanush Kotian got two wickets apiece.

However Mumbai with a first-innings lead were all-out for 181 in just 56.5 overs as Nabi took 5 for 52 and Abid Mushtaq got a couple of wickets. Mumbai were 70 for 5 at one stage but Shams Mulani (41) once again proved to be the saviour adding 50 for the sixth wicket with Akash Anand (31).

The established batsmen like Musheer Khan (8), Ayush Mhatre (13), Ajinkya Rahane (0), Sarfaraz Khan (32) didn’t do much.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)