Ranji Trophy: Mumbai tighten grip over Vidarbha

MUMBAI: After being pushed back a little on the opening day, Mumbai bounced back with champions' stuff to serve Vidarbha a few lessons as they pinned the visitor down on Day 2 of their Ranji Trophy clash at the Wankhede on Thursday.
Vidarbha, meeting Mumbai for the first-time, were left groping for answers after being dismissed for 113 in their first innings in reply to Mumbai's 261.
Zaheer Khan and his men needed just a session-and-a-half to force Vidarbha into submission and gain a match-winning lead of 148 runs.
The hosts then piled on the agony to end the day on a solid 179-1 from 36 overs. Opener Aditya Tare relished the chance striking his second century of the season (His first, 122, was against Delhi) while the South Africa-bound Ajinkya Rahane scored an unbeaten fifty.
At the draw of stumps, Tare was unbeaten on 110 (114b, 157m, 13x4, 3x6) while Rahane was batting on 62 (80b, 106m, 7x4, 1x6). The two shared an unbroken second-wicket partnership of 133 runs to stretch Mumbai's overall lead to a massive 327 runs.
Earlier in the morning, a fair challenge from the Vidarbha batsmen, but they fell like a pack of cards against the might of Mumbai bowling. Once the tall debutant Akbar Khan (6 feet, 5 inches) celebrated his berth in the home team by removing opener Amol Urabande (inside-edge onto stumps) for 13 runs, the floodgates opened.
Pace ace Zaheer Khan accounted for two of Vidarbha's better batsmen, captain Shalabh Srivastava and former ODI player Hemang Badani during his spell of seven overs.
Akbar claimed 2-28 and the 22-year-old Shardul Thakur, picked 3 for 40.
Left-handed Faiz Fazal stuck around for fair amount of time (22: 99m, 69b) before a brilliant catch at gully by Wasim Jaffer ended his stay. The lone big resistance for Vidarbha came from 36-year-old Rashmi Parida, who remained unbeaten on 34 (89m, 60b, 4x4). Tailender Akshay Wakhare managed 14 with the rest failing to reach double figures.
With the minnows done and dusted, Mumbai were back to their scoring ways and Tare made the most of it by scoring his third first-class hundred but it was an aggressive display of strokeplay. Such was his domination that he pulled India bowler Umesh Yadav for two consecutive sixes. He later reached his century carting off-spinner Akshay Wakhare to long-off.
As if to compliment Tare, Rahane too slammed six off Wakhare in the same over (34th) to register his half-century.
Brief scores: Mumbai 261 (W Jaffer 139, Sandeep Singh 4-35, R Jangid 3-48 and 179/1 (A Tare 110*, A Rahane 62*) vs Vidarbha 113 (RR Parida 34, S Thakur 3-40, Z Khan 2-30).