Injury is a part of a player’s life. But coming back after almost a half year’s hiatus and playing with the same touch is a difficult task.
Sehwag flounders but his boys ride on Raina’s brilliant 92 to carve out a 12-run win
AHMEDABAD: Injury is a part of a player’s life. But coming back after almost a half year’s hiatus and playing with the same touch is a difficult task.
However, left-hand batsman Suresh Raina’s return to the sport has been an eventful one.
On his return to the cricketing fold, he did not score that well initially in the match against South Africa A and Mumbai in the Irani Trophy.
But he did not waste the opportunity on Thursday.
Coming in with his team placed in a precarious position, he scored a valuable 92 to bail out India Blue and helped them register a 12-run triumph over India Red in the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy opener at Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera.
Red, chasing a challenging total of 247, made heavy weather of the target on a batting track and were struggling 153 for 5.
However, the sixth wicket pair of Mahesh Rawat (41) and Praveen Kumar (37) nudged closer to the total with a 62-run stand. All hopes of a win ended, though, when Kumar was caught at long on by Suresh Raina off Virender Sehwag’s offspin bowling.
Red needed 31 from 22 balls at that stage.
But Rawat gifted his wicket away trying to do a Misbah-ul-Haq and perished to Joginder in that mindless moment.
India Red finally managed to reach only 238 for 8 in their 50 overs.
The win provided the lone consolation for India Blue skipper Virender Sehwag who failed with the bat.
His nine runs will surely have dented his hopes of returning to the Indian team for the upcoming Pakistan series.
His dismissal also started an initial slide and India Blue were brought down to 23 for 3 by some good seam bowling from Praveen Kumar, who took all the three wickets.
Raina, who is also searching for his lost place in the middle order, then stepped in and played a great innings of guts and gumption.
He handled the Red attack, comprising Kumar, Sidharth Trivedi, Ishant Sharma and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, very well and punished the bad deliveries with impunity.
His knock was mostly possible with some decent contributions from Niraj Patel and Joginder Sharma.
His 87-run stand for the fifth wicket with Patel (35) proved to be the crucial backbone of the innings. Another 49-run stand with Sharma (29) even allowed the team to launch into a full assault with the 200 run mark coming up early into the slog overs.
However, Raina was unfortunate to miss out on a century when Kumar came back to have him caught at fine leg by Virat Kohli, while attempting a pull shot.
His innings of 92 came off 100 balls was studded with 7 boundaries and 2 sixes.
Later, Amit Mishra (29) and Ramesh Powar(21) helped Blues reach a respectable total of 246. Praveen ended up with four wickets who was suitably assisted by the lanky Trivedi with three scalps from the other end.
The Red innings followed a similar pattern with Sehwag’s direct hit sending off in-form opener Gautam Gambhir for a duck.
Skipper Mohd. Kaif brought back some solidity with his 42 with Virat Kohli but he was dismissed by Joginder with the score still reading 70-3.
Like Rawat and Kumar later, S Badrinath and Kohli also could not get a big partnership going with leg-spinner Amit Mishra chipping in at that juncture. Both got foxed by his googlies and were bowled out.
TODAY’S MATCH
India Red vs India Green
On Neo Sports from 2.30 pm
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