Bangalore: A fine spell of bowling by yesteryear Test star Narendra Hirwani helped Plate 'B' restrict Plate 'A' to a moderate total of 247 runs in the first innings on the opening day of the four-day Duleep Trophy match on Thursday. Plate 'B' which began its reply on an impressive note was 54 for no loss when the stumps were drawn with two overs left to be bowled due to bad light. Plate 'A', winning the toss and electing to bat looked for a good start with its openers R Jaiswal and Barrington Rowland doing well. However Plate "A" lost Barrington who spooned a catch to keeper A V Deshpande off Sreeshant when the score was 47. Plate 'A' skipper H Kanitkar joined Jaiswal and ensured no further damage to the side and pushed the score to 139. Jaiswal reaching the fence on 12 occasions contributed a valuable 63 runs, before he was caught at silly point by Hemanth Kumar off Narendra Hirwani, who played a devastating act and scalped five wickets. Kanitkar (41) soon returned to pavilion. Barring Yashpal Singh who scored 33 runs with the help of six boundaries and Dodda Ganesh (38) and others could not hold their willow to the accurate attack by Sreeshanth (4 for 90) and Hirwani (5 for 71), who produced a hat-trick. Plate 'A' folded its innings at 247 in 319 minutes in 72.2 overs. J Arun Kumar (26) and Sujit Somasundar (27) gave a good start to the Plate 'B' putting on 54 runs for no loss. The umpires called off the play when two overs were left to be bowled upon hearing complaints about bad light.

Tags: cricket, bangalore, narendra hirwani, plate "b", plate "a", duleep trophy, r jaiswal, barrington rowland, a v deshpande, sreeshant, h kanitkar, hemanth kumar, yashpal singh, dodda ganesh, arun kumar.