Madhya Pradesh sniff outright victory aganist Jharkhand

Jamshedpur, Nov 5 (UNI) Madhya Pradesh were on the verge of an outright win against Jharkhand after bundling the hosts out for a paltry 139 in their first innings and scored 165 for five in the second knock to earn a vital 249 runs lead on the penultimate day of the four-day Ranji trophy Group B match at the Keenan stadium here today.

Resuming at overnight 83 for five, Jharkhand batsmen did not give much trouble to the scorers, as the wickets fell like nine pins before pacer duo of Sanjay Pandey and Anand Ranjan and offie Jalaj Saxena.

Overnight unbeaten batsmen Subrata Ghosh could not open his account, while captain Manish Vardhan added 13 runs to his overnight total, when he became the victim of Ranjan for 47. He was the top scorer for the home team. Sunny Gupta(20) tried to resist lower down the order but other bastmen surrendered meekly.

Ranjan scapled four wickets for 51, while Pandey's two wickets cost 25 runs. Jalaj also got two wickets off 16 runs.

Taking 84 runs first innings lead the visitors also could not negotiate the pace of S S Rao in an underprepared wicket as the Dhanbad pacer scalped the wickets of openers Muddasar Pasha(6),Naman Ojha (15) and the prize wicket of first innings centurian Jatin Saxena (22) conceeding 42 runs. Raj Kumar picked up the wicket of D Bundela (39), while skipper Brijesh Tomar was run out for 17.

But Jalaj Saxena after chipping in wickets with the ball, showed his allround skill as he remained not out on 44 runs that comprised of five fours along with Sunil Dholpure (batting 10) when the stumps were drawn.

Brief score : Madhya Pradesh: first innings: 223 all out (J Saxena 125 not out) Jharkhand first innings 139 all out (M Vardhan 47,A Ranjan 51/4) Madhya Pradesh second innings: 165 for 5 (J Saxena 44 not out, D Bundela 39, S S Rao 42/3) UNI