Rahane, Iyer, Sarfaraz prop up Mumbai

Mumbai managed to fight back on the opening day of the Irani Trophy 2024 in Lucknow with half-centuries from three of their middle-order batters. After being initially reduced to 37/3 at one point, Mumbai managed to get out of that precarious position by the end of the day to finish with 237/4.

Ruturaj Gaikwad's decision to bowl first was vindicated by the early strikes from Mukesh Kumar. The pacer made use of the movement in the surface early on and struck twice in his second over. He induced an outside edge from a flashy Prithvi Shaw, which was taken by a diving Devdutt Padikkal at second slip. A couple of balls later, in the same over, he had Hardik Tamore poking out and edging behind the wicket-keeper Dhruv Jurel. Opener Ayush Mathre, alongside skipper Ajinkya Rahane, began a brief counterattack with some fluent drives. But just as the duo was settling in, Mukesh came back and surprised Mathre with a bouncer first ball. An instinctive pull only resulted in a top-edge that was pouched by Jurel.

With the team in trouble, Mumbai's most experienced hands in Rahane and Shreyas Iyer came together. Although Iyer was tested early with some short balls, including copping a blow on the body off Mukesh, he settled in as the spinners were brought on. Offspinner Saransh Jain was lofted for a big six before the pacers were brought back on either side of the Lunch interval.

After seeing through a short ball phase from Yash Dayal and Prasidh Krishna, Iyer got his release shots out when Mukesh was brought back and overpitched. He flicked him for a four before lofting him handsomely over cover for six. Meanwhile, skipper Rahane had settled in comfortably and also managed a couple of boundaries when Mukesh erred in length to keep the partnership growing. He got to his fifty with a lofted six off left-arm spinner Manav Suthar soon after Iyer had brought up his.

While the skipper continued at the same tempo, Iyer's innings came to a tame end when he pumped a half-volley from Dayal straight to cover. The 102-run stand had resuced Mumbai from a bit of a bother but they were still not in comfortable territory.

Sarfaraz Khan, who had been released from India's Test squad, started off very watchfully. He got going with a couple of steers off Mukesh through the third man area for boundaries and slowly began to ease his way in. After the initial apprehension, he began to unleash himself in the final session, particularly against the spinners. Suthar was toyed around with, with late dabs and a hard sweep fetching Sarfaraz three consecutive boundaries against the spinner. He brought up his fifty with a neat straight drive off Dayal before bad light forced an early end to the day's play.

@B0$: Mumbai 237/4 (Ajinkya Rahane 86*, Shreyas Iyer 57, Sarfaraz Khan 54*; Mukesh Kumar 3-60) vs Rest of India