Sachin Tendulkar played another good knock for Mumbai on the first day of the Ranji Trophy semi final match against Services which is being played at Palam A Ground, Delhi. Sachin scored a well compiled half century and stabilised the Mumbai innings which was struggling at one point of time after losing the early wickets.
Earlier in the morning, the Mumbai captain, Ajit Agarkar, won the toss and decided that his team would bat first. Mumbai had a disastrous start and three wickets were down at only 23. The Mumbai was in a spot of bother, but, the Master blaster was still there which was good for Mumbai.
Sachin who had scored a brilliant hundred in the quarter final match looked in fine form here as well. There was a bit of help for the fast bowlers, but, Sachin looked untroubled. He showed brilliant technique and played the deliveries according to their merit. He gave respect to the good deliveries, but, he put the loose deliveries away.
He got the support of Abhishek Nayar at the other end. Both these batsmen played sensibly and tried to play just cricketing shots. They didn’t try to improvise too much.
Sachin and Nayar added 81 runs for the fourth wicket before Sachin was dismissed by Avishek Sinha at the score of 56. Sachin had hit Sinha for a six over his head on the first ball of that over. He tried to send the ball out of the park again, but, he didn’t time the ball well and ended up giving an easy catch to Nakul Verma.
Nayar put up another good partnership of 65 runs with the wicket keeper batsman Aditya Tare for the fifth wicket. Nayar got out after playing a good knock of 70 runs.
At the end of the first day’s play, the score of Mumbai was 199 runs for the loss of 6 wickets. Aditya Tare and Ajit Agarkar were not out on 26 and 17 respectively.