After the batters’ good work, the Hyderabad bowlers sniffed blood when they took four top Mumbai wickets to reduce the hosts to 54 for four but opener Angkrish Raghuvanshi and skipper Suryansh Shedge struck timely centuries to bring their side back into the game.
At stumps on the second day of their four-day Col CK Nayudu Trophy match at the Sachin Tendulkar Gymkhana in Kandivali, Mumbai, the hosts were 259 for five. Earlier, Hyderabad had made 334. Mumbai are still 75 in arrears but they have Shedge batting on 110.
The Mumbai chase began on a disastrous note as they lost opener Pranay Kapadia (5), who was trapped leg before by Nishanth S, with five on the board. Ayush Jethwa faced 11 balls but did not trouble the scorers as he was trapped leg before by Dinesh Rathod.
Mohd Abdul Adnan then joined the party as he had Manan Bhatt (6) caught by Dheeraj Goud and Dinesh then got rid of Jay Jain (7) caught behind by Aravelly Avanish.
At 54 for four, Mumbai were in more than a spot of bother. A wicket or two and Hyderabad would have been right on top of them. But Raghuvanshi and Shedge had other ideas. They were not willing the visitors to dictate terms on their own turf.
The duo played themselves in and then began to go after the bowlers. They scored 176 runs off 265 balls for the fifth wicket to steer the Mumbai boat towards the shore. Raghuvanshi scored 85 off 125 balls in that partnership and Shedge got 7 off 140 balls.
However, Raghuvanshi fell in the most unfortunate manner as he was run out by Dinesh, who has been in the thick of action on the day, after making 120. His runs came off 173 balls and contained 17 hits to the fence.
There was no further success for Hyderabad as Shedge and wicketkeeper Prateek Yadav closed shop. The last 17 overs before close of play yielded 29 runs as Mumbai chose to live to fight for another day.
Shedge was batting on 110 off 199 balls with 14 fours and Prateek was on 6 off 42 balls.
Earlier, resuming at their overnight score of 304 for eight, Hyderabad went on to add 30 to the total thanks to Nishanth S who made a 32-ball 22 with three fours and a six.
Brief scores: Hyderabad 334 in 95.2 overs (Nishanth S 22; Nikhil Giri 4/88, Zaid Patankar 3/53) vs Mumbai 259 for five in 77 overs (Angkrish Raghuvanshi 120, Suryansh Shedge 110 batting; Dinesh Rathod 2/58).
