Jadeja keeps things tight, goes wicketless

Chennai: India allrounder Ravindra Jadeja fielded for 84 overs and bowled 17 of them without any apparent discomfort on the first day of the Saurashtra-Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy tie at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday. Back in action after a five-month knee injury layoff, Jadeja is playing the game to gauge his match fitness ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy starting February 9.Sporting a man bun, Jadeja first came on to bowl in the 26th over of the day and was welcomed back to competitive cricket with a cover drive to the fence by TN opener Sai Sudharsan. The left-arm spinner, however, soon settled into a rhythm and bowled tighter lines as is his wont. He continued to make run-scoring difficult in the post-lunch and post-tea sessions and ended the day with figures of 17-2-36-0.With the pitch being slow and not offering much turn, Jadeja didn’t look too dangerous though. If he gets a chance to bowl in the second innings when the Chepauk pitch starts to break up, it will be interesting to see how the left-armer makes use of the rough. TN and Saurashtra are being led by first-time captains Pradosh Ranjan Paul and Jadeja. The 22-year-old Paul was made TN skipper as R Sai Kishore had to miss the match due to fever, making Paul the side’s third captain in as many games, and 21-year-old Sudharsan was picked to be his deputy. Jadeja is leading Saurashtra in the absence of regular skipper Jaydev Unadkat and senior pro Cheteshwar Pujara, both of whom have been rested ahead of the Australia series.The hosts won the toss and chose to bat first on a track that played “slower than they expected”, as per Baba Indrajith, who was unbeaten on 45 off 141 balls at stumps. The sluggish nature of the surface coupled with the visitors’ disciplined bowling led to an unusually sedate pace of scoring from TN, who could only compile 183 runs for the loss of four wickets in 90 overs. Paul, who had amassed 604 runs with a strike rate nudging 60 in the season before this match, was dismissed on Tuesday for 19 runs off 119 balls with a strike rate of 16. Earlier in the day, medium pacer Chirag Jani gave Saurashtra the perfect start with a wicket in the second over of the day. Opener N Jagadeesan cracked one off the backfoot through covers for the first boundary of the morning, but Jani responded brilliantly with an away shaping delivery that found Jagadeesan's outside edge to have him caught behind.Baba Aparajith walked in at No. 3 to join Sudharsan. Jani continued to pose problems in the corridor outside off stump, but Aparajith and Sudharsan weathered the storm adroitly. The duo put together 81 runs before Dharmendrasinh cleaned up Aparajith.Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 183-4 (Baba Indrajith 45*, Sai Sudharsan 45, Baba Aparajith 45; Chirag Jani 2-30) Vs Saurashtra.