Irani Cup: Navdeep Saini Breathes Fire After Rest Of India Score 484

A fit-again Navdeep Saini bowled a brisk first spell to rattle the Madhya Pradesh top-order after Yash Dhull's quick half-century took Rest of India to a commanding 484 on the second day of the Irani Cup in Gwalior on Thursday. Saini (2/15) looked in good rhythm and generated fair bit of pace on a dead track to peg MP back before Yash Dubey (53 batting) and Harsh Gawli (47 batting) added 97 runs for the unbroken fourth wicket to take the hosts to 112 for 3 in their first innings at stumps.

In a match like Irani Cup, the national selectors usually don't just look at the numbers but also at specific players with specific purpose.

One such player is Saini, who missed the entire Ranji Trophy season due to abdominal muscle strain and had to undergo extensive rehabilitation work at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).

Asked to bowl in the second session of the day, he did hurry the MP batters with pace and movement off the track.

It was Bengal seamer Mukesh Kumar (1/27), who got the first breakthrough for the Rest as he angled one across for debutant southpaw Arham Aquil (0), who clearly didn't look ready for this level during his brief stay at the crease.

He didn't look happy with the caught-behind decision but had to trudge back without troubling the scorers.

Saini then got into the act as he bowled beautifully on the off-stump channel and just got enough movement to force the batters to play his deliveries.

A hint of an away movement saw MP skipper Himanshu Mantri jab at the delivery and Dhull, nicely warmed up and alert at second slip, pulled off a good catch.

Subham Sharma (4) got a boundary but never looked comfortable against Saini, whose nip-backer was good enough to find him plumb in-front.

However once the ball