Mumbai, Jan 12: With a 422-run lead and a day remaining, Tamil Nadu have strengthened their claim for a finals berth against Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy 2011-‘12 tournament. Building on their 202-run first-innings lead, Tamil Nadu had scored 220 for four wickets at the end of Day 3 of their semifinal against hosts Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu wrapped up Mumbai’s first innings for 157 runs, claiming the remaining four wickets a little over an hour into the day’s play. V Yo Mahesh removed overnight batsman Hiken Shah and Dhawal Kulkarni while L Balaji and J Kaushik claimed Ramesh Powar and Kshemal Waingankar respectively. Shah was back in the pavilion after edging the ball to the keeper while Powar, who had replaced him, was castled by the Tamil Nadu captain after being hit for a four earlier in the over. A few overs later Kulkarni hit the ball straight to Balaji to return to the dressing room and was soon followed by Waingankar whose dismissal ended Mumbai’s dismal innings.

Although the hosts were 53 runs short of a follow on, TN chose to bat instead of enforcing it in the quest for the Ranji Trophy title. Scoring at a steady pace, openers Abhinav Mukund and Murali Vijay added 84 runs by the end of the first session. But soon after lunch, Waingankar bowled Mukund bringing the experienced S Badrinath to the crease. A little while later, Ankeet Chavan bowled Badri while pacer Balwinder Singh Sindhu dismissed Dinesh Karthik. With three wickets gone, K Vasudevadas joined Vijay at the crease and the duo continued to add to the team’s total.

Vijay, who has had a rather ordinary season, scored his first century of the tournament with a boundary off Ankeet Chavan towards the fag end of the day. As the session drew to a close, Vasudevdas departed for 36, hitting a Waigankar delivery to Surya Kumar Yadav at mid-wicket bringing in R Prasanna (1*) to see the day through with Vijay (103*).

Scorecard