Avesh picks four as MP bowl out Railways for 274

Indore, Dec 27 (PTI) Avesh Khan took four wickets as defending champions Madhya Pradesh bowled out Railways for 274 on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy Group D match here on Tuesday.

Avesh returned with figures of 4 for 69, while Saransh Jain and Puneet Datey (2/52) shared four wickets between them as Madhya Pradesh took 87.4 overs to fold Railways’ innings.

Besides, Kumar Kartikeya (1/57) and Shubham Sharma (1/8) picked up a wicket each.

Electing to bat, Railways did not have the best of starts as Avesh struck in the fifth delivery of the match, removing Vivek Singh.

The India pacer came back in the 16th over to account for the wicket of Shivam Chaudhary (21) before Shubham Sharma dismissed Rahul Rawat (29) to reduce Railways to 68 for 3 in the 25th over.

Mohammad Saif (39) and Shubham Chaubey (24) added 44 runs for the fourth wicket before both the batters departed.

Skipper Upendra Yadav top-scored for Railways with a gritty 61 off 123 balls and hit eight boundaries in the process.

Towards the end, Akash Pandey (24 not out) and Adarsh Singh (24) played useful hands to take Railways past the 250-run mark.

Brief Scores:

At Indore: Railways 274 all out in 87.4 overs (Upendra Yadav 61; Avesh Khan 4/69) vs Madhya Pradesh.

At Agartala: Punjab 62 for 1 in 17 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 41 batting; Ajay Sarkar 1/17) vs Tripura.

At Ahmedabad: Chandigarh 247 for 7 in 90 overs (Bhagmender Lather 68 batting, Arslan Khan 56, Gaurav Puri 51; Shen Patel 4/77) vs Gujarat.

At Nagpur: Jammu and Kashmir 191 all out in 68 overs (Musaif Ajaz 41, Suryansh Raina 30; Yash Thakur 4/40) vs Vidarbha 58 for 2 in 21.1 overs (Atharva Taide 24; Abid Mushtaq 1/2).