Down with fever Suresh Raina couldn’t bat in Ranji Trophy opener against MP

Uttar Pradesh skipper Suresh Raina, who made a comeback in the India’s ODI squad for the first 3 games of the New Zealand series didn’t bat for the team in the first round match against Madhya Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy 2016/17 season as he was down with fever.

In the 4-day fixture between the two teams at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad Raina was hit by fever on 2nd day of the game. He couldn’t take the field and later left the ground around 3:30 PM along with his teammate Praveen Kumar, who wasn’t playing the game. The southpaw left for Delhi on Saturday and won’t feature in the game any further.

The Madhya Pradesh side that elected to bat first posted a total of 465 in their first innings thanks to an unbeaten 216 from Harpreet Singh Bhatia. Harpreet shared a 155-run stand for 8th wicket with Ankit Sharma (61) and made the UP bowlers toil hard on the field.

Later UP managed to post just 176 runs in their first innings as the MP pacers Gourav Yadav and Ishwar Pandey picked 4 and 3 wickets respectively. Suresh Raina’s column in UP’s scorecard read Absent Hurt.

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Raina hadn’t been a part of the Indian ODI squad since the home series against South Africa last year. He wasn’t picked for the Australia and Zimbabwe ODI series but the incoming selection panel headed by former Indian wicketkeeper-batsman MAK Prasad showed enough faith in his all-round abilities to pick him for the ODI series against the Kiwis.

The upcoming opportunity could well be a make or break series for Raina. Ideally he would have looked to make most in the ongoing Ranji round and gain much needed confidence before returning to the national squad. He has another 7 days in hand to get fit in time for the first ODI against New Zealand.

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