Cuttack, Oct 20: After salvaging the sinking ship in the first innings by scoring a power-packed century, talented and explosive middle-order batsman, Abdul Samad followed it with a masterclass unbeaten 70 runs in the second essay to guide Jammu and Kashmir to a respectable score of 195/4 runs at stumps on day-3 against Odisha, thus making the contest evenly poised in the ongoing Ranji Trophy Elite Group-A match at Cuttack on Sunday.
Conceding just 2-run first innings lead to Odisha, J&K has now gained a lead of 193 runs with the final day of the match to follow tomorrow. Anything above 250 runs on this track in around two and a half sessions would be an uphill task for Odisha.
Samad has created a unique record of scoring all his five centuries in the prestigious Ranji Trophy in much lesser than 100 balls, with his first century in 63 balls, second in 68 balls, third in 67 balls, fourth in 71 balls and this one in 78 balls.
With unbeaten 70 in the second innings and a ton in the first innings, hitting 14 sixes in the match so far,
Playing his 25th First Class match, Samad has hit a big number of 77 sixes, with just 25 matches in his kitty, Samad already stands at 7th spot in the list of highest sixes hit by a player in the history of Ranji Trophy, with Saurashtra’s Sheldon Jackson standing at the top with 131 sixes in 92 matches.
Meanwhile, resuming from an overnight score of 230/5, Odisha managed to score 272 runs in their first innings to gain first innings lead of 2 runs.
Skipper Govinda Poddar scored unbeaten 133 runs off 201 balls studded with 11 fours and 4 sixes, while Ashirwad Swain contributed 32 runs to the total.
Abid Mushtaq was the most successful bowler for J&K, who bagged 4 wickets by conceding 84 runs in his 31 overs, while Umar Nazir bagged 3 wickets by giving away 33 runs in his 14.5 overs.Auqib Nabi, Yudhvir Singh and Sahil Lotra claimed one wicket each.
J&K were 195/4 in 59 overs at stumps today. Samad was unbeaten on 70 off 59 balls with 4 fours and 5 sixes, while Sahil Lotra was on 21 runs. Shubham Khajuria (43) and Shubham Singh Pundir (40) were the other major contributors.
Kartik Biswal took 2 wickets, while Suryakant Pradhan and Sumit Sharma claimed one wicket each.
Earlier, batting first, J&K after struggling at 58/4 in the first innings, rode on a splendid partnership of 131 runs between Samad and Sahil Lotra to manage a decent total of 270 runs.
Samad scored 127 runs off 117 balls with 9 sixes and 5 fours, while Lotra contributed 39 runs off 116 balls with 3 boundaries. Shubham Singh Pundir (20), Yudhvir Singh (18) and Abid Mushtaq (17) were the other contributors.
Debutant Suryakant Sharma was the pick of the bowlers for Odisha, who took 5 wickets by conceding 79 runs in his 17 overs. Debabrata Pradhan also claimed one wicket.
Member-Administration JKCA, Brig Anil Gupta has congratulated Abdul Samad for his outstanding show with the bat.
