Ranji Trophy: Baba Indrajith frustrated as Tamil Nadu let Delhi off the hook | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Baba Indrajith had mixed feelings at the end of Day 2 of the Ranji Trophy match against Delhi here at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. The sun beating down all day, Wednesday was the best day to bat. This was his shot to remind the selectors why he was an eligible candidate to feature in India ‘A’ teams regularly. Instead, he walked off for a 94-ball 71, unhappy that he threw away a chance to score big in testing conditions.
The captain’s dismissal left Tamil Nadu in a tricky situation while chasing Delhi’s first innings score of 303. Indrajith knew Tamil Nadu should have done better than finish the day at 213/5.
“I was hurt when I was ignored for India ‘A’. I have been scoring consistently. But I decided to focus on this season. I couldn’t convert the previous starts in the season — I was given out by a bad decision once and was run out in the other innings trying to score quickly,” Indrajith said.

Tamil Nadu had the opportunity to put Delhi under pressure when Lalit Yadav and Pranshu Ranjan took strike at the start of the day on 212/6. But Indrajith had to bowl his spinners as they had to make up for the slow over rate. Ranjan took advantage of the slow bowlers to garner 58. L Vignesh and Sandeep Warrier returned figures of 4/50 and 4/106 for the visitors.
Tamil Nadu openers Sai Sudharshan and N Jagadeesan gave a rollicking start, scoring 25 off 24 and 34 off 46 respectively. Then Indrajith and his twin brother Aparjith put on an 86-run partnership before Harshit Rana started using TN pacers’ strategy by bowling bouncers.
The ploy worked as Aparajith’s half-hearted pull on 57 ended at mid-wicket before Indrajith was dismissed in an identical manner soon.

“I was ready to concede a few boundaries but plan was to keep on bowling the short ball and allow the brothers to play their shots and wait for a mistake,” Rana said.
Brief scores: Delhi 1st innings 303 in 97.1 overs (Dhruv Shorey 66; L Vignesh 4/50) vs TN 214/5 in 54 overs (Baba Indrajith 71; Harshit Rana 3/73)