Captain Ravikumar Samarth led by example with a fine century to prop up Uttarakhand before Vidarbha nosed ahead with two wickets at the fag end of second day's play in their Ranji Trophy Group B match in Dehradun on Sunday. (More Cricket News)
Responding to Vidarbha's first-innings total of 326 all out, Uttarakhand managed to reach 242 for seven at stumps thanks to Samarth's innings of 119, which came off 241 balls.
However, the home team trailed Vidarbha by 84 runs despite Samarth's hundred.
The 31-year-old Samarth, who left Karnataka to play for Uttarakhand this season, used his years of experience in first class cricket to keep his side in the game against last season's runners-up.
Having come here with a reputation for being fluent at the top of the order, Samarth struck 12 boundaries during his stay in the middle, helping his team remain in the game.
The problem with Uttarakhand innings was that Samarth did not get enough support at the other end.
Kunal Chandela (19), Yuvraj Chaudhary (28) and Swapnil Singh (27) got starts but could not convert them into big scores. Even opener Avneesh Sudha seemed to have got his eye in but fell after making 30 off 45 balls.
The 39-year-old veteran off-spinner Akshay Wakhare was the day's most bowler for Vidarbha, returning figures of 3/47 in 17 overs, where there were two wickets for Aditya Thakare.
At stumps, Mayank Mishra and Abhay Negi were batting on 1 and 2 respectively.
Brief scores:
In Dehradun: Vidarbha 326 all out in 88 overs (Dhruv Shorey 35, Danish Malewar 56, Yash Rathod 135; Mayank Mishra 3/72, Avneesh Sudha 2/35, Swapnil Singh 2/70) vs Uttarakhand 242/7 in 87 overs (Ravikumar Samarth 119; Akshay Wakhare 3/47)
In Visakhapatnam: Andhra 344 all out in 92.4 overs (Shaik Rasheed 69, Hanuma Vihari 66, Srikar Bharat 65; Rishi Dhawan 3/80, Divesh Sharma 5/60) vs Himachal Pradesh 198/4 in 65 overs (Ankit Kalsi 53, Akash Vasisht 52; KV Sasikanth 3/50).
In Jaipur: Gujarat 335 all out in 97.4 overs (Priyank Panchal 110, Aarya Desai 86, Jaymeet Patel 61, Umang Kumar 41; Arafat Khan 4/50, Kukna Ajay Singh 3/102) vs Rajasthan 180/5 in 69 overs (Abhijeet Tomar 77; Jaymeet patel 3/77).
In Hyderabad: Hyderabad 536/8 declared in 163 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 173, Abhirath Reddy 68, Rohit Rayudu 84, Kodimela Himateja 60, Tanay Thyagarajan 53; Ankit Sharma 3/117, Satish Jangir 2/72) vs Puducherry 24/2 in 12 overs.
