Vidarbha in commanding position

Nagpur, Feb 19

Akshay Wadkar's fabulous century after skipper Faiz Fazal's 192 put Vidarbha in a commanding position against Uttar Pradesh in Elite Group G Ranji Trophy match at Sulganpur in Haryana on Saturday.

In response to Uttar Pradesh's first innings total of 301, Vidarbha declared their innings on 548 and thus took massive first innings. Trailing by 247, Uttar Pradesh lost two wickets for 32 runs and were trailing by 215 runs.

If the second day belonged to Faiz and Sanjay Ramaswamy, wicketkeper batsman Akshay Wadkar who scored unbeaten (102, 150 b, 15x4). Thus he scored his sixth First Class Century.

Earlier resuming at 256 for 2, both the overnight batsmen Faiz Fazal and Ganesh Satish started the proceedings on a positive note. They started to build up another healthy partnership. However, Vidarbha lost third wicket in the form of Ganesh Satish (38) after crossing 300-run mark He gave the catch to Aaquib Khan off Samarth Singh with 333 runs on board. Soon Faiz Fazal who was heading towards a double century returned to the pavilion. He was trapped in front of stumps by Saurabh Kumar. Then it was all Wadkar and explosive batsman Apoorv Wakhede (66, 117b, 6x4, show. They not only rotated the strike but punished the rival bowlers. In the process Wadkar completed half-century. Wadkar was a little bit more aggressive than his partner. Wankhede too played some lusty shots and completed his half century. When Wankhede was on 66, Ankit Rajpoot dismissed him. After his departure, Akshay Karnewar (30) gave good company to Wadkar to in the process scored the century and remained unbeaten.

For UP, Saurabh Kumar (3 for 160) was the main wicket-taker. Ankit Rajpoot got 2 fot 86.

Uttar Pradesh in their second innings had a shaky start as Vidarbha's young pacer Aditya Thakare sent opener Samarth Singh to the pavilion on duck. On the score of 21, they suffered another blow when left-arm spinner Aditya Saravate clean bowled Madhav Kaushik.

At stumps, Priyam Garg was playing on 18 runs with captain Karan Sharma (2).