Assam suffer humiliating defeat against Himachal Pradesh

Tarjinder’s fight goes in vain

By our sports Reporter

GUWAHATI, December 31: A fantastic unbeaten 90 run knock from Tarjinder Singh went in vain as Assam suffered a humiliating one innings and 133 run defeat against Himachal Pradesh in their third Ranji trophy match held at the Barsapara ground today. The loss pushed Assam to fourth place, along with Kerala,  in the points table. Both the sides collected 8 points from 3 matches. Himachal Pradesh remained at the top with 17 points from same number of matches.

Assam, who were forced to follow on after the side were bowled out for 218 runs in their first innings yesterday, never found itself in the comfort zone today. The most surprised thing is that the team collapsed on the wicket which was completely batting friendly and it should certainly force the selectors to think something different in the next game as the top order failed to perform consistently during the first three games of the season.

The home team started their second innings with a deficit of 331 runs but pathetic display of batting forced them to finish their second innings at 198. It would have been more worste if Tarjinder didn’t stay on the wicket for 279 minutes to remain unbeaten.

Assam, who started their second innings this morning, lost four early wickets to stumble to 28 for 4, but Tarjinder Singh, coming in at no.6, batted for nearly five hours to score an unbeaten 90. Tarjinder stroked 13 fours during his 212 balls knock, but was hard–pressed to find solid support at the other end. Sib Sankar Roy, Swarupam Purkayastha and  Kul Saikia gave little company to Tarjinder during his unbeaten knock and every time the partnership was broken just at the moment when it started to show a ray of hope. The best partnership in Assam’s second innings was between Tarjinder and Sibsankar (20) in the fifth wicket which produced exactly 50 runs. Except Tarjinder and Sibsankar, only two other batsmen–Gokul Sarma (10) and Swarupam Purkayastha (24) were able to score in double figures in the second innings.

Rishi  Dhawan, the most successful bowler of Himachal Pradesh in the second innings,  claimed 5 for 53, while Ankush Bedi and Vikramjeet Malik two two wickets each.

The coach of Assam team was very upset at the poor performance of the batsmen in the game as the side lost 20 wickets in two days. Talking to the media persons, coach Sath Kumar said," I admit that my batsmen totally failed in this game. They were capable to deliver much better, but unfortutely that did not happen. We  should have to rectify the errors before the next game." 

Scoreboard:

Himachal Pradesh 1st innings: 549–4 (dec).

Assam 1st innings 218.

Assam 2nd innings : P Das b Dhawan 5, DS Jadhav lbw b Malik 4 , S Roy  b Bedi 20, KB Arun Karthik lbw b Dhawan  0, G Sharma b Dhawan 10, Tarjinder Singh not out 90, J Syed Mohammad lbw b Bedi 0, S Purkayastha c Gangta b Dhawan 24, K Saikia c Karanveer Singh b Malik 4, AN Ahmed b Bipul Sharma 0, K Das b Dhawan 8. Extras (b 14, lb 11, w 2, nb 6) 33 Total (all out; 79.5 overs) 198

Fall of wickets: 1–10, 2–10, 3–10, 4–28, 5–78 ,6–78 ,7–121, 8–154  9–167

Bowling: VS Malik 14–7–23–2, R Dhawan 26.5–8–53–5, AP Vasisht 5–1–15–0, Karanveer Singh 15–6–37–0, Bipul Sharma 11–7–14–1, AS Bedi 8–3–31–2

Player of the match –: P Dogra (Himachal Pradesh)