Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 3: Middle-order batsman, Mohammad Saif slammed a marathon century to guide Railways to a decent score of 322/8 in 85 overs on day-1 of the Ranji Trophy Elite Grop-D match at Lalbhai Contractor Stadium, Surat today.
Earlier, winning the toss and batting first, Railways suffered two early jolts and were 14/2 in 6.2 overs as Speedster Umar Nazir again produced a fiery and lethal opening spell, removing Railways opener Shivam Choudhary (0) and Pratham Singh (12), thus strengthening rather cementing his place in J&K’s Ranji trophy squad among a battery of genuine quick bowlers.
Another opening batsman Vivek Singh and number-4 Mohammad Saif consolidated the innings and took the score to 75 before Singh departed at his individual score of 32 runs.
However, Saif continued his brilliance and helped the team to score 322/8 at stumps on day-1 today.
At one point of time, Railways were struggling at 136/5 in 42.2 overs, but Saif played a magnificent innings of unbeaten 161 runs off 216 balls, studded with 23 boundaries, while Vivek Singh (32), MR Raut (22), skipper Upendra Yadav (21) and SS Yadav (20) were the other contractors.
Saif remained unconquered at 161 runs, while Akash Pandey was unbeaten on 23 runs at the draw of stumps.
For J&K, left-arm spinner Abid Mushtaq was again the pick of the bowlers, who took 3 wickets by conceding 76 runs in his 22 overs, while speedsters Umar Nazir and Auqib Nabi bagged 2 wickets each. Another seam bowler, Mohammad Tahir also claimed one wicket.
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