Bapuna Cup: Bandiwar takes six; Yadav misses ton

NAGPUR: After seeing Sunil Yadav taking on Bapuna XI bowlers, pacer Sandeep Singh wasn't looking too impressed and exchanged pleasantries with the Maharashtra XI batsman in the post lunch session.Yadav stepped out next ball and hit the Vidarbha spearheadover his head and signalled him to fetch it. Throughout the day, he kept onplaying his shots and forced the bowlers to think out of thebox.While his teammates struggled on a wicket, which had somethingfor the pacers, Yadav played positively scoring a strokeful 96 (163b, 13x4s,3x6s) to take Maharashtra XI out from a precarious 33-5 to 204, which lookedimprobable when they lost a well set Abhijit Salwi - who scored hundred here inlast year's edition of Bapuna Cup cricket tournament - in the post lunch sessionafter being put in to bat. At stumps on day one of Bapuna Cup,Maharashtra XI sent back openers Faiz Fazal and Shiv Sunder Das back with just14 on the board to keep the match wide open. While Yadav was thestar for the visitors, Swapnil Bandiwar bowled beautifully with the new ballpicking up six wickets for 47 runs. The 21-year-old would have loved to bowlalongside Shreekant Wagh and Sandeep on the VCA Civil Lines wicket but had tocarry the burden alone as both got injured. The Reshimbag Gymkhanabowler, who bagged five wickets in his last outing in the warm-up match, carriedfrom where he left and wrecked Maharashtra XI middle order after Sandep Singhand Faiz Fazal sent back openers Swapnil Gugale and Vishant More early. Bandiwarbowled in right areas and made the batsmen commit error with the fuller lengthdeliveries. Yadav then took the attack to the opposition hittingsome audacious shots. He wasn't afraid of coming down the wickets to evenseamers. It was his positive batting and two useful stands of 56 and 90 withAnsari (19) and Nitish Salekar (33, 96b, 5x4) respectively that helpedMaharashtra cross 200-run mark.Conscious of three-figure mark, Yadavwent in shell for a brief period which resulted in his downfall with just fouraway from a well-deserved century. By then, Yadav had already given his bowlerssomething to bowl at. Brief scores: Maharashtra XI: 204 in 74.5(Sunil Yadav 96, Nitish Salekar 33, Azhar Ansari 19, Abhijit Salwi 18; SwapnilBandiwar 6-47) vs Bapuna XI: 14-2 in 9 overs (Sajin Sureshnath 1-4, SatyajitBachav 1-1).