Ayush Badoni slams unbeaten century as Delhi take control against Jharkhand

Ayush Badoni steered Delhi to a commanding position on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy Elite Group C clash at JSCA International Stadium Complex in Ranchi on Monday.Opting to bat, Delhi ended the day at 309/5, thanks largely to an unbeaten century from Badoni and his decisive sixth-wicket partnership with Sumit Mathur.The in-form Badoni continued his prolific run, scoring 106 off 122 balls with 11 fours and two sixes. It was the Delhi skipper’s sixth first-class century and second of the season, following his maiden double hundred against Gujarat in the previous round. He had begun the campaign by scoring 85 against Bengal in a losing cause.Badoni walked in with Delhi’s score at 143/4 during the second session. The visitors slipped further to 181/5 before Badoni joined hands with Mathur to wrest back control for the team.The pair stitched together an unbroken 128-run stand, frustrating the Jharkhand attack.Mathur complemented his captain perfectly, remaining unbeaten on 50 from 119 deliveries.Earlier, openers Priyansh Arya (39) and Sanat Sangwan (37) negotiated testing opening spells from Jharkhand pacers Jatin Pandey and debutant Shubh Sharma to provide a solid foundation for Delhi.Ranji Trophy scores, Round III, Day 1Group A: In Indore: Bihar 99 (Mangal Mahrour 42; Saransh Jain 7/40) vs MP 261/3 (Saksham Purohit 113*; Amod Yadav 2/25); in Nagpur: Goa 204/8 (Yash Kasvankar 51*, Darshan Misal 51; Nachiket Bhute 4/40) vs Vidarbha; in Vadodara: Baroda 259/6 (Priyanshu Moliya 113*; Umar Hazir Mir 2/28) vs J&K; in Puducherry: UP 67/4 vs Puducherry.Group B: In Mysuru: Tripura 194 (Bikramkumar Das 51; Abhilash Shetty 5/54, L Manvanth Kumar 3/23) vs Karnataka 10/1; in Vijayawada: Andhra 231 (Rahul Seeram 89; Jayant Yadav 4/75, Ajay Mandal 3/56) vs Chhattisgarh 35/1; in Secunderabad: Punjab 289/6 (Prabhsimran Singh 81, Salil Arora 57*) vs Hyderabad; in Rajkot: Assam 235/6 (Denish Das 90, Sibsankar Roy 59*; Jaydev Unadkat 3/27) vs Saurashtra.Group C: In Ranchi: Delhi 309/5 (Ayush Badoni 106*, Sumit Mathur 50*) vs Jharkhand; in Mangalapuram: Bengal 172/6 (Ankur Paul 66; Aditya Sarwate 3/38) vs Kerala; in Pune: Gujarat 223 (Abhishek Desai 79, Jaymeet Patel 58; Siddhesh Veer 4/20) vs Maharashtra 24/1; in Bhubaneswar: Odisha 194 (Pulkit Narang 6/47) vs Services 13/0.Group D: In Mumbai: Mumbai 290/3 (Angkrish Raghuvanshi 114, Musheer Khan 109) vs Haryana; in Chennai: Railways 184 (Zubair Ali 75; Sonu Yadav 3/46, R Sai Kishore 3/53) vs Tamil Nadu 71/3; in Dehradun: Rajasthan 272 (Kartik Sharma 73; Devendra Bora 6/72) vs Uttarakhand 18/0; in Chandigarh: Chandigarh 363/2 (Arjun Azad 146, Nehal Pajni 126*) vs Himachal Pradesh.Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.