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ShareMumbai: Eyeing a return to the national team after a long lay-off due to shoulder injury, left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan along with Ajit Agarkar superbly rose to the occasion to see Mumbai finishing the opening day on a high in their Ranji Trophy Super League clash against Punjab in Chandigarh on Tuesday.
With Zaheer and Ajit claiming three and four wickets, respectively and youngster Dhawal Kulkarni chipping in with a couple, Punjab were at 242 for nine at close with Manpreet Gony (30) and Love Ablish (0) holding the fort.
Had opener Ravi Inder Singh not put up a valiant show and did the rescue act with a patient 104, Punjab would have found it difficult to cross the 200-run mark. Opting to bat on a sporting wicket, Punjab suffered an early jolt when opener Sunny Sohal nicked Zaheer Khan to wicket-keeper Vinayak Samant when the scoreboard read 12.
However, the pair of Ravi and Uday Kaul did well to deal with the dangerous duo of Zaheer-Agarkar and stitched together a 68-run stand for the second wicket. But Kaul could not capitalise on the opportunity and got dismissed in the same fashion but this time to Agarkar.
Ravi who was batting well ran out of patience and gave a straight forward catch to Abhishek Nayar off Agarkar's for his individual score of 104. Zaheer's victims were youngster Taruwar Kohli and experienced Pankaj Dharmani while Agarkar claimed the wickets of Kaul, Ravi Inder, Ankur Kakkar and Harmeet Singh.
"We had a good day in office. The wicket was quite sporting, Ajit, Zaheer, Dhawal and Abhishek bowled very well," coach Praveen Amre said after the end of day's play.
The former Test cricketer said that they could have bowled them out early. "It was a 200-230-wicket but Ravi Inder came back strongly," Amre said.
