NEW DELHI: Such has been the standard of the Delhi team this Ranji Trophy season that every batter across the country is now eager to play against them and score runs.
Hanuma Vihari, having fallen off the radar of India's Test team, must have come to Delhi hoping to get back among the runs. As the dense fog cleared up at the Ferozeshah Kotla late on Tuesday and Andhra opener Abhishek Reddy was dismissed for 22 with the team's score of 47, Delhi's inexperienced bowling attack knew they had to dig deep to get past Vihari.
The day ended with Andhra scoring 203/3 with Vihari still batting on 76 off 202 balls. Vihari's effort on Tuesday may suggest that the conditions were not absolutely conducive to free-flowing strokeplay but opener Gnaneshwar's fluent 81 off 158 balls tells a different story.
Delhi had pacer Divij Mehra and left-arm spinner Yogesh Sharma debuting while pacer Harshit Rana and off-spinner Hrithik Shokeen were playing their second first-class game. Seam-bowling allrounder Pranshu Vijayaran was playing his third first-class game.
One would have expected Vihari, with an experience of 16 Test matches, to have dominated this attack like he used to dominate domestic bowlers till a season ago. Instead, one saw a cautious and sedate approach from Andhra's talismanic batter.
During his 106-run second-wicket partnership with Gnaneshwar, it was the latter who kept the scoreboard ticking along before being smartly caught at slip off Shokeen.
Vihari, on his part, appeared to be crawling at best. It was evident he wasn't going to give his wicket away cheaply. Shokeen and Yogesh had him tied to his crease as an uncharacteristic Vihari never looked like using his feet to the spinners. "I was able to score freely. Hanuma was not able to score. So, it was decided I kept going," Gnaneshwar said after the day's play. "The pitch was turning a bit slow. We have good spinners to exploit the conditions later in the match."
