Gujarat Dominates Day 1 of Ranji Trophy as they Bowl out Saurashtra for 216

In Rajkot, Skipper Chintan Gaja displayed exceptional bowling skills, grabbing four wickets with his probing line as Gujarat managed to restrict Saurashtra to a meager 216, giving them the upper hand on the first day of the Ranji Trophy quarter-final match held on Saturday.

At stumps, Gujarat were 21 for no loss with both openers veteran Priyank Panchal and young turk Arya Desai safely negotiating the five over towards the fag end of the day. Gaja, who bowls at a friendly pace between 118 to 122 kmph, consistently pitched it up to claim 4 for 48 in 21 overs as all Saurashtra batters, save opener Chirag Jani , struggled against the visiting team, whose decision to bowl first was vindicated.

Cheteshwar Pujara hit a few crispy and a couple of streaky boundaries during a 50-run stand with Jani but had to head back to pavilion while trying to over-attack.

It was left-arm spinner Siddharth Desai , who induced the out of favour Test stalwart to come down the track with a flighted delivery. Pujara wanted to play his customary whip through the mid-wicket but closed the bat face to present a simple leading edge catch to short cover which was gleefully accepted. While Jani, who hit 11 fours and a six off Desai, looked comfortable but once he was dismissed by Gaja with a delivery that rose a tad extra from good length in the post-lunch session, things fell apart for Saurashtra. Arpit Vasavada did try his bit to fight it out but lost out on partners at the other end. The second session belonged to left-arm seamer Jaymeet Patel, who complemented his skipper well by quickly removing Prerak Mankad and Samar Gajjar with bounce and movement to completely dismantle Saurashtra. The session between lunch to tea saw Saurashtra scoring only 36 runs and losing four wickets in the process from which they could never recover. Gaja picked up a couple in the final session as the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy champions Gujarat now look to bat the home team out of the contest. Brief Scores:

Saurashtra 1st Innings: 216 in 72.1 overs .

Gujarat 1st Innings: 21/0 in 5 overs .

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