Gautam’s maiden century puts J’khand in box seat

Back in the side only in Jharkhand’s last Ranji Trophy match after a long injury lay-off, Shiv Gautam is having a ball with the willow. Though he is yet to don the wicketkeeper’s gloves, his contribution with the bat has been incredible in both the matches.
On Saturday, the second day of Jharkhand’s last group league encounter of this season against Services, the right-hander struck 150, his career-best knock and maiden first-class century, to help his side take a huge 157-run first-innings lead.
It was mainly because of Gautam’s superbly crafted innings on either side of the day’s break and able support from Ishank Jaggi and interestingly, No. 9 Varun Aaron, that Jharkhand put up 387 in reply to Services’ 230. Gautam struck 18 fours in his 271-ball, 486-minute stay in the middle and was the eighth man to depart with 364 runs in Jharkhand’s kitty.
However, the start of the day was not so pleasant for the hosts as they lost two wickets inside the first hour of play with the addition of just 39 runs to the overnight total of 102/2. Nightwatchman Rituraj Singh played his part to score 22 but middle-order mainstay Saurabh Tiwary could not open his account in eight-ball stay.
However, there was no more hiccups as Jharkhand’s most dependable man this season, Jaggi came in next. Though the No. 6 batsman failed to reach another three-figure mark when looked set to do so, his 63 runs was valuable to stitch together a 107-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Gautam.
Jaggi departed edging medium pacer Roshan Raj behind the stump and next two batsmen, captain Kumar Deobrat and all-rounder Kaushal Singh, too, were out in the same fashion. Aaron was promoted up the order ahead of Shahbaz Nadeem and repaid the faith shown by the team management with a composed innings of 48 off 83 balls.
The India speedster hit four boundaries in his 135-minute stay. The second highest partnership of the Jharkhand innings was shared between Aaron and Gautam for the ninth wicket. They fell two runs short of a century stand when Gautam was out to part-time medium pacer Sumit Singh in the 102nd over of Jharkhand’s innings. Aaron was the last man out for the hosts.
Medium pacers Suraj Yadav and Raj shared six wickets between them but Yadav was the pick of the Services bowlers as he spend 99 runs for his three scalps compared to Raj’s 133.