Ranji Trophy: Chopra hits triple ton

Dharamshala: Opener Prashant Chopra hit the first triple hundred of the current first-class season as Himachal Pradesh piled up a massive 729/8 declared against Punjab on the second day of the Ranji Trophy Group D encounter.

At stumps, Punjab were 110/1 with Jiwanjot Singh unbeaten on 34 in company of Uday Kaul.

Opener Pargat Singh scored an attacking 64 off 69 balls before being dismissed.

The match however belong to Chopra, who had scored in excess of 900 runs last season and was recently a part of the India A team.

Chopra, started the day at 271 and went onto score 338 off only 363 balls with as many as 44 boundaries and two sixes to his credit.

Finally, it was off-break bowler Pargat, who ended Chopra's incredible effort by taking a return catch. With the Punjab attack sans their skipper Harbhajan Singh in real tatters, Ankush Bains (80), Rishi Dhawan (49) also feasted on the bowling to ensure that they pile up a gigantic score.

In another group B match at the Palam Ground in Delhi, Bengal declared their first innings at 552/9, with top three players Sudeep Chatterjee (115), skipper Manoj Tiwary (69) and Wriddhiman Saha (55) amongst runs.

In reply, Services were 103/1 at stumps on the second day with Mohammed Shami (1/33) getting the only wicket.

The highlight of the second day’s play was Ashok Dinda's 25-ball-55 with eight boundaries and two sixes. With Mohammed Shami (23), the final wicket yielded 77 runs for Bengal to take their score past 550 runs. Before that, Amir Gani (51) added 76 runs with Kanishk Seth (30) for the eighth wicket.

Half-centuries by B Sumanth and Ashwin Hebbar gave Andhra Pradesh a crucial lead on the second day against Tamil Nadu at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. Their knocks helped Andhra wrest the initiative against the star-studded hosts after having been 64/5 at one point to end the day at 231/7, a lead of 55.

Tamil Nadu had been dismissed for 176 in the first innings.

Resuming at the overnight score of eight without loss, the visiting side was in trouble almost immediately as opener DB Prashanth Kumar fell to L. Vignesh.

Ranji Scores
Group A: At Delhi: Assam 258 in 95 overs (S. Purkayastha 66, G. Sharma 51, A.N. Ahmed 27, Ishant 5/38) vs Delhi 269/4 in 80 overs (Gambhir 136*, N. Rana 110*, A.N. Ahmed 3/39). At Lucknow: Railways 182 & 27/3 in 14 overs vs Uttar Pradesh 250 in 85.5 overs (A.D. Nath 75, S. Chudhary 44, R.K. Singh 42, U.A. Sharma 25, Anureet Singh 3/42, Avinash Yadav 3/86).
Group B: At Lahli: Saurashtra 278 in 90.3 overs (Mankad 68, Jackson 51, Jani 45, Parmar 35, Pujara 35, Hooda 6/61) vs Haryana 107 in 42.3 overs (Sanandia 4/44, K.D. Patel 3/21, Unadkat 3/35) & 93/6 in 29.4 overs f/o (Bishnoi 53).
At Jaipur: 330 in 115.2 overs (Bist 113, Menaria 69, Gautam 51, Bishnoi 43, Mudhasir 5/81, Rasool 3/50) vs J & K 150/1 in 58 overs (Khajuria 53, Bandy 72*, Pranav Gupta 17*). At Trivandrum: Jharkhand 202 in 73.2 overs (Ishan Kishan 45, Ashish Kumar 25, Jalaj Saxena 6/50) vs Kerala 250/8 in 86 overs (Azharuddeen 51, Arun Karthik 26, Jalaj Saxena 47*, Sunny Gupta 6/94).
Group C: At Indore: Madhya Pradesh 551/8 decl. in 164 overs (S.S. Sharma 196, Ankit Sharma 104, Bundela 99, Datey 33, Harpreet 32, Swapnil 3/136) vs Baroda 36/2 in 13 overs.
Group D: At Delhi: Bengal 552/9 decl. in 137 overs (S.D. Chatterjee 115, Tiwary 69, Easwaran 65, Saha 55, Dinda 55, Gani 51, Seth 30, Pandey 4/108, Pathania 3/100) vs Services 103/1 in 39 overs (Ravi Chauhan 42 retd. hurt, Navneet 44*). At Dharamsala: Himachal Pradesh 729/8 decl. in 148 overs (Prashant Chopra 338, P. Dogra 99, Bains 80, Sumeet 79, Dhawan 49, Vasisht 26, Jaiswal 26, Sandeep 4/149) vs Punjab 110/1 in 30 overs (Pargat 64, Jiwanjot 34*). At Porvorim: Chhattisgarh 458 in 161.3 overs (Manoj 125, Saxena 82, Kaif 61, Ruikar 57, Rishabh 45, Chauhan 37, Misal 5/79, Amit 3/111) vs Goa 28 for no loss in 10 overs.