Atharva Taide, Yash Rathod shine on eventful opening day

Atharva Taide carried his bat throughout the day to score an unbeaten century and Yash Rathod made 91 as Vidarbha finished at 280/5 by stumps on an eventful opening day against Rest of India in the Irani Cup. Akash Deep and Manav Suthar shared five wickets between them on either side of the massive 184-run stand between Taide and Rathod.

Winning the toss, Vidarbha opted to bat first. Aman Mokhade got off to a positive start with a flurry of boundaries against Anshul Kamboj in particular before Deep got rid of him. It was then Taide's turn to deal in boundaries before Dhruv Shorey launched one beyond the ropes off Saransh Jain to stamp his authority. Vidarbha appeared to be very well placed at 80/1 before things turned around in dramatic fashion.

Suthar, bowling his first over of the innings, struck twice to stun the Ranji champions. He first castled Shorey for 18 before sending Danish Malewar back to the pavilion for a three-ball duck. Under pressure to stitch a partnership, Taide then joined forces with Rathod to rescue Vidarbha. The two players kept finding the boundaries at regular intervals to keep the scorecard ticking before Taide brought up his fifty off 120 balls.

Rathod, who has been in great form heading into this fixture on the back of his man of the match performance in the Duleep Trophy final, stood tall yet again. He brought up his half-century off 103 balls and looked set for a long haul. The duo kept the ROI attack at bay for a major part of the day with Taide bringing up his ton in the process. However, right before the close of play, Rathod slammed a six to move into the nineties and got out the very next ball to miss out on his ton. Deep then got the key wicket of Akshay Wadkar to make sure ROI ended the day on a positive note.

Brief scores: Vidarbha 280/5 (Atharva Taide 118*, Yash Rathod 91; Manav Suthar 3/64, Akash Deep 2/35) vs Rest of India