Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 17: J&K’s talented young fast bowler, Umar Nazir Mir not only made the red leather ball to dance, weave and sing with his magical fingers, strong wrist and high-arm action, but also forced the rival batsmen to dance on the music of the deliveries that either left their willow or their chin with a decent speed during a CK Nayudu trophy match against formidable Assam at GGM Science College Hostel Ground, here today.
Umar was simply hell-bent upon to either knock the rival batsmen’s heads off or their wickets down to help Jammu and Kashmir enjoy a driver’s seat at stumps on day-3 of the 4-day match.
The strongly built, 6 feet 2 inch tall fast bowler, bowled his heart-out and hit the right areas with genuine speed throughout his morning spell to help Jammu and Kashmir bundle out Assam for a paltry total of 193 runs in 66.1 overs, thus gaining a decisive lead of 178 runs.
With this performance he made history as he became first bowler from J&K to take 9 wickets in an innings.
Earlier, resuming the day from 149/5, with overnight batsmen Sunzow Brahma and RL Das at 25 and 32 runs respectively, Assam batsmen struggled against Umar Nazir, who wrecked havoc, to collapse at 193 runs. Das remained top scorer with 44 runs, studded with 6 boundaries, while Brahma and AS Sinha contributed 31 runs each. For J&K, Umar Nazir took 9 wickets by conceding 53 runs in 21.1 overs, while another speedster, Mehjoor Ali Sofi claimed one wicket.
Though, after gaining a lead of 178 runs, J&K could have asked Assam to follow on, yet they decided against it and chose to bat themselves in the second essay. After scoring 197 runs in 63.4 overs by losing 6 wickets, J&K skipper Asif Khan declared the innings to set a target of 376 runs for Assam. Aamir Sofi emerged top scorer with 67 runs off 127 balls, including 2 boundaries and 2 sixes, while Asif Khan (44), UN Mir (31), Pranav Gupta (23) and Divya Pratap (17) were the other contributors. For Assam, PD Sonowal captured 3 wickets, while Krishna Das and MR Das claimed one wicket each.
Chasing a victory target of 376 runs, Assam in their second essay were struggling at 40/2 in their 8.4 overs. The two batsmen back into the pavilion were opener Rishav Das and Dipesh Sana, while another opener R Hazarika was unbeaten on 21 off 23 balls, studded with 4 delectable boundaries. For J&K, Umar Nazir and Mehjoor Ali Sofi shared one wicket each. Assam have an uphill task at hand as they are still 336 runs behind having 8 wickets in their kitty with the last day’s game left in the match.
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