Ranji Trophy 2015: Akhil Herwadkar applies finishing touch

The specialist tweaker, the left-armer Harmeet Singh was left largely operating from over the wicket and into the rough patch outside leg stump.

There wasn’t any in the line of stumps, and without much natural loop – he had once impressed the likes of Ian,Chappell with it but has since made some action changes which has affected his bowing – he couldn’t be incisive.

On the other hand Akhil Herwadkar found enough on the pitch for his off-spin. He defended his teammate Harmeet gallantly, putting down the purchase he got off the track to the footmarks of Punjab’s left arm seamer Barinder Singh.

He was accurate, and also, gave it a fair tweak, enough to cause a few problems to the batsmen. Once, the overnight batsman Himanshu Chawla, the replacement of Gurkeerat Singh who is in the Indian squad, fell early, lbw to Balwinder Singh in the third over with the new ball, Herwadkar got into the thick of things.

He got one to turn into Mandeep Singh. The Punjab batsman completed his hundred today, but couldn’t keep this particular delivery down. The ball lobbed off the bat-pad to the short leg fielder Shrideep Mungela.

Two overs later, Herwadkar did the same with Sidharth Kaul and in the first session his figures read: 7-0-17-2 as opposed to Harmeet who had given away 32 runs in six overs in the morning.

Good day’s work

He finished the game off with couple of quick wickets. Khera, a pretty decent wicketkeeper batsman, who probably should get a promotion ahead of Chawla, fell after a good knock 86.

He tried to cut Herwadkar but Suryakumar Yadav anticipated well and moved to his right from first slip to pouch a catch. And when Barinder top-edged a slog to midwicket, it was all over.

Herwadkar laughed about how he “would sleep well today after making contribution with the ball”, and flashed a shy smile while mentioning he will want to consider himself as an all-rounder.

Mumbai coach Chandrakant Pandit too was a happy man after the debacle against Andhra. Mumbai have a few concerns: The form of Abhishek Nayar, and that of the specialist spinner — Vishal Dabholkar in the first game and his replacement Harmeet in the second. Not every team might collapse cheaply like Punjab, did on first day. In batting, much depends on Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar and Sidesh lad. They play Tamil Nadu in the Mumbai suburb Bandra on Thursday, and that game will give a better idea of their progress.

Brief scores: Punjab 154 & 403 all out (Mandeep 116, Jiwanjot 91, G Khera 86; A Herwadkar 6/52) lost to Mumbai 569/8 dec. Points: Mumbai 7, Punjab 0.