Mumbai have upper hand despite Srinivas' late strikes

Mumbai, who seemed down and out on Monday, fought back in resounding fashion to wrest back the initiative by the end of the third day's play in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group Final being played at the Wankhede Stadium. At stumps, the hosts, who had conceded a 11-run first-innings lead, were 228-4 in their second essay.

The revival of Mumbai's title aspirations was triggered by Ajit Agarkar, who struck two crucial blows when play resumed on Tuesday morning. Bowling his nippy fast medium-pacers, Agarkar snared the two overnight batsmen Sridharan Sharath (15) and Hemang Badani (56) for the addition of just 16 runs to the Tamil Nadu total (239 for 6). The loss of the two senior batsmen left the visitors rudderless and rather unsurprisingly their innings folded up for 271. Agarkar ended up with four wickets, while leg-spinner Sairaj Bahutule claimed three wickets.

With a strong second-innings showing necessary, Mumbai would not have been too pleased to see Vinayak Mane trudging back to the pavilion after making just two (22 for 1).

But after a lucky let-off on five, an aggressive Nishit Shetty, ably supported by opener Wasim Jaffer, set about the task of putting his team in the driver's seat. The second-wicket partnership involving the two men was peppered with a generous number of boundaries and yielded 188 runs.

As the duo piled on the runs, Tamil Nadu's morale sagged and quite a few easy catches were dropped. Shetty was eventually dismissed for 100 (134 balls, 14 fours), his lazy shot being comfortably pouched by S Suresh. Jaffer did not last long after his erstwhile partner's departure, being trapped plumb in front by MR Srinivas for 98.

With Vinayak Samant also falling for six a short while later, Tamil Nadu ended the day on a far better position than they would have hoped to when Shetty and Jaffer were holding sway. But the visitors would still be the first to concede that Mumbai now have the upper hand in this five-day clash.