da brwin： Kaustubh Pawar rescued Mumbai from a precarious position with a fiercely-determined century and along with the lower order, all but battedMadhya Pradesh out of the Ranji Trophy
Abhishek Purohit at the Holkar Cricket Stadium03-Jan-2012
Scorecard
Ankeet Chavan supported Kaustubh Pawar in an unbeaten stand of 129•Fotocorp
Kaustubh Pawar rescued Mumbai from a precarious position with a fiercely-determined century and along with the lower order, all but battedMadhya Pradesh out of the Ranji Trophy. Mumbai had begun the day 122 runsbehind MP with only five wickets remaining, but Pawar showed tremendouscharacter in grinding out his second hundred in his debut season at a timeMumbai desperately needed someone to bail them out.That he struggled with his rhythm till he reached the three-figure markbut did not throw his wicket away was a credit to Pawar’s temperament.That Mumbai lost only two wickets today after 15 had fallen on the firstday was partly due to their tenacity and partly due to the pitch which had eased out.The first session was MP’s only real chance of trying to take the lead butPawar and Hiken Shah kept them at bay, giving no chances. As he had doneyesterday, TP Sudhindra kept the batsmen defensive with excellent controlover his lines and lengths but unlike they had done on day one, Mumbai didnot succumb against the lack of runs. They kept nudging and guiding forsingles and Pawar, especially, continued to leave almost everything thatwas outside off stump.He was beaten on numerous occasions by Sudhindra who also had him down onthe ground a couple of times as he avoided bouncers. Pawar was even hit onthe helmet as he took his eyes off another bouncer but he just refused toget out. There was also only so much Sudhindra could do alone. Hikensignaled Mumbai’s growing confidence when he lofted fast bowler AmarjeetSingh for a straight one-bounce four.Sudhindra managed to break the stand minutes before lunch when Hikenfinally fiddled with one outside off stump and nicked to the slip cordon.Mumbai were less than 50 runs behind by then, though. Also, a tail thathas Ramesh Powar, Ankeet Chavan and Dhawal Kulkarni is not exactly a tail.Kulkarni arrived ahead of Powar and Chavan and with Pawar holding one endup, calmly pushed up the scoring rate with positive batting. MP wereforced to spread the field and bring their innocuous spinners on asKulkarni soon took Mumbai into the lead with a driven four through extracover.Sudhindra was still not done, though. He bowled Kulkarni for 40 with onethat bounced from a good length but MP now had Chavan to contend with.With the crucial first-innings lead in the bag, Chavan was able to playhis strokes from the start. Pawar, meanwhile, got to his century inuncharacteristic fashion off his 233rd delivery, stepping out to drive theoffspin of Jalaj Saxena through extra cover.The landmark brought out the strokeplayer in Pawar as he started to driveand cut with authority. Chavan cruised to a fifty as well, swinging a sixover long-on in between his straight and cover drives. The eighth-wicketstand swelled past 100, taking the game further away from aflagging MP. Pawar showed no signs of fading, still finding theenergy to punch and push for the three runs that took him past 150.MP’s bowlers tried everything after being let down by their batsmen butonce again, Mumbai had someone to do the dirty work and dig them out ofthe hole.