Badrinath, GauthamGambhir blaze to glory

The second day of the Challenger Series belonged to Subramaniam Badrinath (82 not out) and Gautam Gambhir (73). Both played elegantly to help India Red post a commanding 303 for 7 against India Green today, and thereby help their side to an 88-run win. India Red won with a bonus point and have already qualified for the finals. That leaves the two teams meeting tomorrow— Green and Blue — to decide on the other finalist. If India Blue wins tomorrow’s encounter they will qualify, or else it will boil down to the net run rate.

Both Gambhir and Badrinath seemed to be competing against each other. Interestingly Badrinath was drafted into the Indian team in place of Gambhir during the Australia series after the southpaw got injured. Now, Badrinath would like to retain his spot, while Gambhir would want to get his berth back when the selectors meet here tomorrow to pick the squad for the Pakistan series. And both, with equally good performances, have made the task of the five wise men a bit difficult.

Gambhir was more cautious to begin with, and then slowly started to attack the bowlers, just playing according to the situation to set the platform for a big total. During his 74-ball innings, Gambhir showed his class— playing shots on all sides of the wicket through his seven boundaries.

But just when he looked set for a century, an ambitious shot brought an end to his knock. Piyush Chawla, in his second over, tossed up on the middle and off, and the batsman, looking to hit over mid-wicket, guided the ball to Manoj Tiwary.

Badrinath, batting at No. 5, seemed to be continuing from his 41-run knock yesterday — middling the ball from the start and ensuring that the team didn’t lose the initiative given by Gambhir. He was though, a shade slower than Gambhir to reach the

50-mark. The Tamil Nadu player took 62 deliveries to Gambhir’s 58 but made up for it soon after, racing to 82 from 79 balls, including seven boundaries and a last ball six off Munaf Patel to take the total past 300.

In the initial part of his innings, Badrinath was playing second fiddle to the more attacking Virat Kohli (40 off 45 balls). The duo put on 85 runs for the fifth wicket before 18-year-old Delhi batsman was stumped by Parthiv Patel off Iqbal Abdulla. Kohli hit two huge sixes and a boundary. Later Paresh Patel played a cameo 12-ball 22 to give impetus to the scoring rate.

India Green, in reply, never looked in contention as they lost wickets at regular intervals even as the required run-rate kept mounting. Only Tiwary looked capable of guiding the ship with a steady 65 but lack of support from the other end didn’t help.