Saurashtra openers make Mumbai toil

Just before the tea interval, Saurashtra coach Debu Mitra asked Siddharth Trivedi, one of the new-ball bowlers, which was the flatter of the two pitches between Cuttack and Rajkot. A month ago, in their season opener, played at the Barabati stadium, Saurashtra's bowlers had toiled for 199 overs, yet failed to bowl out Orissa in a match where 1039 runs were scored.

Today, at the Khandheri Cricket stadium, Mumbai's bowling, lead by Zaheer Khan, India's leading fast bowler, managed to take just two wickets as Saurashtra finished an energy-sapping first day on 244 runs on a dry pitch.

Playing his second Ranji match in two weeks, Zaheer might have liked a more generous pitch and conditions. Fortunately for India, Zaheer stood strong throughout the day in which he bowled 13 overs, spread over spells in each of the three sessions, before signing off with the ball of the day, which earned him his solitary wicket.

Zaheer was the first player to enter the field after the bell rang five minutes before start of play, marking his run-up quickly. His third delivery, pitched outside the line off stump, hit Chirag Pathak on his back pad and drew a loud appeal from the wicketkeeper and slips. Zaheer did not bother appealing and turned back to deliver the next ball. His sole focus, it appeared, was to find his rhythm.

The Saurashtra left-right opening pair of Pathak and Bhushan Chauhan surprisingly played with undue restraint on a harmless pitch. Pathak was Zaheer's initial target in the morning. Zaheer aimed at coercing him into a mistake, peppering the diminutive opener with short-pitched deliveries with two short legs in place. In the past, Pathak has shown a penchant to play belligerent strokes, but today he showed restraint.

Zaheer's first spell of six overs went for 26 runs and there was nothing much in it to scare the openers. A bowler of Zaheer's stature can often impose himself on a domestic game just by his presence, as Wasim Jaffer, the Mumbai captain, had observed on the eve of the match. Instead Pathak and Chauhan dictated terms. On a pitch lacking in pace, the pair of Dhawal Kulkarni and Aavishkar Salvi, Mumbai's other seamers, failed to make an impact as well.

Though Ramesh Powar tried hard to draw the batsman out with his slow, loopy off breaks, Pathak and Chauhan played with dead bats most times. Iqbal Abdulla's left-arm spin was hardly utilised by Jaffer in the first two sessions; instead he turned to the part-time spin of Suryakumar Yadav. The plan came close to success but Jaffer in the slips spilled a hard cut shot, played late by Pathak, who was six runs short of his fourth first-class century.

After lunch Zaheer attacked with two short legs, a leg gully, a slip, a short point, short cover and silly mid-off. Zaheer bowled from round the stumps, and wide of the crease to unsettle the batsmen, but the strategy failed to dislodge either batsman.

With the lush outfield, Zaheer's efforts to try and get some reverse swing did not materialise as the Saurashtra openers registered a 200-run partnership for the second time against Mumbai. The same pair had racked up 275 runs at the Madhavrao Scindia Cricket ground in the 2008-09 season, the highest opening partnership by Saurashtra against Mumbai.

There was to be no new record though, as Pathak attempted an inside-out lofted shot against Powar, but hit it straight to Jaffer at cover, ending the opening pair's 218-run stand. Though Sagar Jogiyani started with two punched back-foot fours against Kulkarni, he had no answer to a straighter delivery from Zaheer, which pitched on a good length and moved quickly to clean up his off stump. There was no trademark Zaheer celebration of spread-eagling his arms this time. Instead Zaheer rubbed the sweat off his forehead and quietly accepted the pats from his teammates. He bowled just one over after that wicket and finished the day with figures of 13-0-55-1.

Saurashtra might think they earned a small victory by keeping Zaheer quiet. But on a pitch that could not be more batsmen-friendly, the hosts scored under three runs an over. Tomorrow if they fail to score at a fair clip their slow rate of scoring might come to hurt them.