Swarupam Purkayastha saves the day for Assam in Ranji Trophy

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: Assam pushed to back foot on Day I in the Ranji Trophy match against Hyderabad in Hyderabad today. Invited to bat, Assam were bowled out 205 in their first innings and hosts were 78-3 at stumps. Swarupam Purkayastha fought lone battle for Assam and the batter scored 83 before got out as the last wicket.

Batting was not upto the mark for Assam today as most of the top order batters, except Swarupam Purkayastha, failed to come out as per the expectation. Captain Kunal Saikia opened the innings today with Rahul Hazarika but the duo was separated when Kunal (1) got out on team's total 2. The fall of wicket continued thereafter also as the side quickly reduced to 5-42. Siddhartha Sarma, who was promoted at number three position, today failed to open his account and other top order batters Rahul Hazarika (11), Rishav Das (14) and Riyan Parag (10) also didn't stay long. Seasoned batter Gokul Sarma and Sibsankar Roy tried to repair the damage and the two batters added 43 runs on the 6th wicket. However once the partnership was broken Assam started to struggle again and were pushed to 119-7. However a terrific knock from Swarupam Purkayastha helped Assam to put a respectable total on the board.

Swarupam took guard on the wicket after the departure of Sibsankar Roy. He faced 88 balls to score 83 and there were 11 boundaries and three sixes in his innings. Swarupam also added valuable 32 runs with Akash Sengupta (18) and another 38 runs on the last wicket with Sunil Lachit (4 no). Two right arm pacers of Hyderabad-Ravi Teja (4-53) and Kartikeya Kak (3-43) shared seven wickets between them.

Hyderabad batted 27 overs on the remaining part of the day's play and scored 78-3 in their first innings. Mukhtar Hussain bagged two wickets and the other one was collected by Akash Sengupta.

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