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Skipper Parthiv leads Gujarat fightback
Parthiv Patel was given a life by leg umpire Nitin Menon when he pointed out to his colleague K. Hariharan that wicketkeeper Vinayak Samant had not caught the ball properly.
Parthiv Patel was given a life by leg umpire Nitin Menon when he pointed out to his colleague K. Hariharan that wicketkeeper Vinayak Samant had not caught the ball properly. The Gujarat captain had glanced a Dhawal Kulkarni delivery and the umpire upheld Mumbai’s half-hearted appeal.
But Parthiv was not even looking at the umpire, convinced he was not out. When the leg umpire signalled that the ball had indeed touched the ground before being ‘caught’, Samant shook his head.
Parthiv was yet to open his account and that reprieve was enough for this season’s highest scorer to lead Gujarat’s fightback after Mumbai had given them a daunting task of scoring 649 for the first-innings lead in this Elite Group A encounter.
The Gujarat captain was not the one to be dispirited by the steep target and in the company of Bhavik Thaker, went about the job of building the innings.
With Mumbai already losing medium-pacer Aavishkar Salvi to a groin injury before lunch, captain Wasim Jaffer was forced to use batting hero Rohit Sharma as part-time spinner but the two played him at ease.
Brief Scores: Mumbai 648 decl. vs Gujarat 432 for 3 (P Patel batting 148, B Thaker batting 111, N Patel 57; D Kulkarni 2-54).
