Rajkot: Ravindra Jadeja, who was ignored for the series against New Zealand, made a statement with an unbeaten 150 for Saurashtra on the first day of their Group B match against Jammu and Kashmir in the Ranji Trophy here.
Jadeja, who has not played for India since the Test series in Sri Lanka two months ago, struck his eighth first- class hundred to take Saurashtra to 428/4 at stumps. Jadeja shared a mammoth 281-run stand for the fourth wicket with Sheldon Jackson, who smashed 181 off 156 balls.
His blazing innings comprised 22 fours and seven sixes. Jadeja, on the other hand, hit 18 boundaries and two sixes during his unbeaten effort.
The southpaw did not play in Saurashtra's Ranji Trophy opener against Haryana at Rohtak. Jadeja was not selected for the one-day international series in Sri Lanka before being ignored for the 50-over and Twenty20 series against Australia.
Meanwhile, young guns Nitish Rana (89) and Anuj Rawat (74) continued their good form as Delhi reached 318/6 against Railways in their Group A encounter.
Also, Smit Patel (99) and Yashpal Singh (96) missed out on centuries, but helped Tripura recover from 41/3 to reach 244/7 at stumps against Tamil Nadu in Chennai.
Scores
Group A: In Delhi: Delhi 318/6 in 90 overs (Nitish Rana 89, Anuj Rawat 74, Anureet Singh 3/71) vs Railways. Karnataka 77/0 (R Samarth 47*, Mayank Agarwal 26*) trail Assam 145 (Gokul Sharma 55, K Gowtham 4/20, Shreyas Gopal 3/43) by 68 runs. In Mysore: Assam 145 in 59.1 overs (Gokul Sharma 55, K Gowtham 4/20, Shreyas Gopal 3/43) vs Karnataka 77/0 in 30 overs (R Samarth 47*, Mayank Agarwal 26*). Note: Hyderabad vs UP (Day 1 washed out).
Group B: In Jaipur: Rajasthan 250/4 in 90 overs (Gautam 103*, T.N. Dhillon 66*) vs Jharkhand. In Nadiad: Kerala 208 in 66.5 overs (Sanju Samson 51, Piyush Chawla 5/69, S.A. Desai 3/90) vs Gujarat 60/2 (Samit Gohil 26*). In Rajkot: Saurashtra 428/4 in 90 overs (Sheldon Jackson 181, Ravindra Jadeja 150*) vs Jammu & Kashmir.
Group C: In Chennai: Tripura 244/7 in 90 overs (Yashpal Sharma 96, Smit Patel 99, K. Vignesh 2/36) vs Tamil Nadu. In Indore: Madhya Pradesh 250/5 in 89 overs (Naman Ojha 99*, Ankit Sharma 63*, Akash Parker 2/48) vs Mumbai. In Baroda: Baroda 247/7 in 90 overs (Kedar Devdhar 93,Vishnu Solanki 61, Ayyappa Bandaru 3/46) vs Andhra.
Group D: In Mohali: Punjab 161 42.2 overs (Abhishek Gupta 89, Lalit Yadav 3/47, Neral 3/48) vs Vidarbha 106/1 in 37 overs (SR Ramaswamy 52*). In Raipur: Bengal 283/2 in 90 overs (Koushik Ghosh 114, Abhishek Raman 94, Sudip Chatterjee 58*) vs Chhattisgarh. In Dharamsala: Goa 255 (Rituraj Singh 55*, Pankaj Jaiswal 4/59) vs Himachal Pradesh 2/0 in 2 overs.
