da 888casino： Hosts Assam took a stranglehold of the proceedings in their East ZoneRanji Trophy clash against Bihar at the Tinsukia District SportsAssociation Ground on Friday
Sankhya Krishnan22-Dec-2000Hosts Assam took a stranglehold of the proceedings in their East ZoneRanji Trophy clash against Bihar at the Tinsukia District SportsAssociation Ground on Friday. After Bihar were trundled out for 85,the Assamese overhauled their tally before the day was out, but notbefore losing their entire top-order in the process, closing at 122/5.The visitors won the toss and elected to take first strike, only tolose Nikhilesh Ranjan to the second ball of the match, bowled byGautam Dutta. For good measure, Dutta in his third over also toppledthe stumps of the other opener Mohinder Singh Dhoni. Bihar neverrecovered from that horror start as the other opening bowler JavedZaman got into the act, collecting the next three scalps. The Biharmiddle order crumbled from 45/3 to 46/6 in the space of three overs.Sukhbinder Singh proceeded to finish off the tail, terminating theinnings for 85 in the 43rd over, but it was Zaman who collected thebest figures of 4/39. In an innings that contained five ducks, onedrop Aamir Hashmi’s 27 was top-score.Assam openers PK Das and SB Saikia knocked off forty for the firstwicket inside ten overs. A series of setbacks from thereon impededfurther progress as four wickets tumbled in quick succession to leavethe hosts at 69/4, Kunjan Saran and Nikhilesh Ranjan sharing the fourwickets equally between them. Rajesh Bora and Ganesh Kumar added 45for the fifth wicket before Bihar pulled back a late wicket when theformer was stumped for 33. With fifteen overs remaining, the match wassuspended at 4.07 pm due to bad light, Assam holding a 37 runadvantage with five wickets in hand.