Odisha counterattack after Sanklecha burst

KRISHNAGIRI: Last week, under the hot Chennai sun, Anupam Sanklecha produced two frantic spells of fast bowling to take Maharashtra to victory over Assam. So naturally , he would have relished the cooler climes when he reached Krishnagiri for the match against Odisha. And a look at the wicket, which had a vast green patch in the middle, would have made him raring to go.
There was no way the Maharashtra captain Swapnil Gugale would have opted to bowl with the 34-year-old seamer, in supreme form, in his ranks and the strike bowler responded with another hostile spell of bowling (475) to give his team the early advantage.However, Odisha played attacking cricket to reach 311 for nine and even out the contest at the end of day one of the Group B match at Krishnagiri Stadium, Wayanad on Tuesday . Sanklecha, who now has 39 wickets this son, rose to the top of the wicket-takers season, rose to the top of the wicket-takers chart, dislodging Pankaj Singh who has 36. It was a day of pacers as Sanklecha was complemented well by young left-arm pacer Mohsin Sayyed who bagged three wickets. For Odisha, Biplap Samantray top scored with 89. He was out on the last ball of the day .
Sanklecha struck in the fifth over of the match removing Sandeep Pattanaik for four.He was caught at point by Akshay Darekar.The very next ball, the seamer castled Odisha captain Govinda Poddar to peg them further back. Sayyed who came on as the first-change then trapped Saurabh Rawat to leave Odisha reeling at 31 for three.
Opener Ranjit Singh found an able partner in youngster Abhishek Yadav and it seemed they would take Odisha out of trouble.However, Sanklecha in his second spell produced a ripper to remove Ranjit (26) who played all around a sharp in-dipper and the offstump was broken into two. It was reminiscent of Mohammed Shami's shorter to Alastair Cook a few days back in the India-England Test at Visakhapatnam.
The good thing from Odisha's point of view that their batsmen were punishing the loose balls and keeping the scoreboard ticking.
Samantray hit a crisp cover drive off right-arm seamer Rahul Tripathi to take the Odisha score past 100 and followed it up with a wristy flick through midwicket for another boundary . It was another signal for the Maharashtra bowlers to pull back their length a bit as the pitch did all the trick from the good length area. What was noticeable is that whenever the bowlers erred on length and bowled really full, the Odisha batsmen drove them comfortably and they were able to maintain a healthy run rate despite wickets falling regularly .
Samantray and left-hander Abhishek Yadav took Odisha to lunch without further loss at 111 for four. But they were not able to keep Sanklecha out for too long. The seamer struck in the third over after lunch to send back Yadav for 32. The 21-year-old youngster, playing his first season, had the chance to take his team out of the woods but he nicked one behind trying to cut a half-tracker which was way wide of off-stump.
Samantray then stitched a 98-run seventh wicket partnership with Deepak Behera to take Odisha to 259. After Behera dismissal, also Samantray carried the innings forward playing some lovely drives, until he was bowled just 11 short of a century . “Early in the morning, there was a lot of help for the seamers and we managed to peg then back. However, it is disappointing that they managed to get away and go past 300,“ said Sanklecha. Brief scores: Odisha 3119 in 82.1 ovs (Biplab Samantaray 89, Deepak Behera 58; A Sanklecha 4-75, M Sayyad 3-58) vs Maharashtra