Left-arm spinner Vikas Mishra bowled to his reputation to claim six Madhya Pradesh wickets on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy match at the Ferozeshah Kotla here on Saturday.
Delhi won a good toss and appeared to concede the advantage after the visitors got off to a brisk start of 59. Once Vikas struck to remove Aryaman Birla, the Madhya Pradesh batting collapsed and finished the opening day at 132 for nine with off-spinner Shivam Sharma chipping in with three wickets.
The match started late on account of a wet pitch. After an early lunch, Delhi squeezed in 51 overs for the day before play was called off. The batting looked easy when Birla and Anand Bais went about their job. It was a different story once Delhi’s spinners got into the act.
Vikas was outstanding in his approach. He chose to bowl on the stumps and make the most of a helpful surface. “For the first time this season,” said coach Mithin Manhas, “I did not see the spinners bowl bad balls in the initial stages. It was heartening to see them attack the stumps and MP looked clueless.”
Vikas and Shivam did not give the MP batsmen any freedom to leave the crease. The batsmen were uncertain in their approach and paid the penalty when playing back too often.
“This was a kind of pitch where you just had to bowl up to the batsmen. The bowlers won us the advantage,” added Manhas.
Madhya Pradesh came to the contest with some good work from their batsmen, especially Rajat Patidar and Yash Dubey. Both, however, failed to get going and the middle-order had little chance once skipper Naman Ojha got out cheaply to Vikas.
Sensing a chance to run through the opposition, Vikas gave his best, pushing the ball and extracting help from the pitch. “He was the difference today,” said Manhas, summing up Delhi’s performance.
The scores: Madhya Pradesh — 1st innings: Aryaman Birla c Himmat b Vikas 24, Anand Bais c Himmat b Shivam 35, Rajat Patidar lbw b Vikas 14, Naman Ojha lbw b Vikas 11, Shubham Sharma c Rana b Vikas 0, Yash Dubey b Vikas 16, Venkatesh Iyer b Shivam 1, Kumar Kartikeya (batting) 19, Mihir Hirwani b Vikas 0, Avesh Khan c Rawat b Shivam 0, Kuldep Sen (batting) 4; Extras (lb-5, nb-3): 8; Total (for nine wickets in 51 overs) 132.
Fall of wickets: 1-59, 2-65, 3-85, 4-85, 5-102, 6-103, 7-111, 8-111, 9-112.
Delhi bowling: Saini 13-5-27-0, Khejroliya 6-4-11-0, Shivam 14-3-48-3, Vikas 18-5-41-6.