Duleep Trophy 2016, Match 1, Day 3 Review: Victory in sights for India Red

After batting pretty awkwardly in the first innings, India Red, powered by centuries from Abhinav Mukund and Sudip Chatterjee helped their side manage a massive 497 run lead over and set the stage for a possible victory.

Abhinav Mukund could add only 7 runs to his overnight score of 162 runs and was dismissed shortly into the fresh day. The much-needed breakthrough was provided by Ashoke Dinda who got Mukund caught at Gully off a thick edge.

Following his dismissal, no India Red batsman could stay at the crease for considerable time except for Gurkeerat Mann as leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal and Pragyan combined together to stop the Red from piling on runs on the board.

However, unfortunately, it wasn’t a quick wrap-up as one would think. Gurkeerat Mann stood in the middle quite firmly and built short yet useful partnerships with the lower middle order batsmen to take the team total past 450 runs mark. But, thankfully for the Greens, Gopal and Ojha kept striking regularly and eventually brought the curtains down on the Greens innings folding them for 486.

But, there was nothing to worry for the Suresh Raina-led side as they had already managed a 497 runs lead making things quite terrible for the India Red batsmen. The case began on a risk note with Jalaj Saxena and Robin Uthappa forging a steady 66 runs stand. But, poor judgement cost Saxena his wicket as Ishwar Pandey cleaned him up in the 10th over to break the stand. Uthappa and Parthiv Patel then carried the team without any trouble till the dinner session.

Left-arm chinaman Kuldeep Yadav clinched his maiden first class five wickets haul has left India Red on a brink of a huge win at the end of the day three. The India Red side dominated India Green throughout the day and it seems that it will be only a matter of time tomorrow before the Yuvraj Singh-led side will clinch a comfortable win.

The post-dinner session was terrible for India Green as they suffered a slump triggered by Yadav. A total of 6 wickets fell in just one session; five of which were taken by the young left-arm spinner.

Robin Uthappa and Parthiv Patel took care of the proceeding for while returning from the dinner break. However, wickets soon began tumbling at regular intervals. Yadav immediately made an impact snapping two quick wickets in the 23^rd over of that of Uthappa and Paliwal. Three overs later, he snapped Patel with wonderful googly.

Suresh Raina and Saurabh Tiwary then held the fort with a 53 run partnership. But, Yadav intervened again and broke the stand with the wicket of Tiwary to take his team closer to victory. The left arm spinner was not done with his job as he added Sandeep Singh to his tally and completed his 5-fer.

At the time of stumps, India Red had an impossible task of chasing another 280 runs to win with just 3 wickets in hand.

Brief Scores:

1st Innings

India Red: 161 all out (A Mukund 77; S Sharma 4/62)

India Green: 116/7 (S Tiwary 50; N Singh 6/53)

2nd Innings:

India Red: 486 (Abhinav Mukund 169; Shreyas Gopal 5/123)

India Green: 217/7 (Uthappa 48; Kuldeep Yadav 5/55)