As the final of the Ranji Trophy Super League began here, with Delhi winning the toss and electing to field first, Uttar Pradesh found themselves walking up to a track that had a lot for the bowlers to take advantage from. There was considerable bounce, swing and the opportunity to bowl fast, traits that any batting side would hate to counter on Day One of such an important match.

As play progressed one could’ve easily switched from one television channel to the other— both, the India-Australia Test to the Ranji Trophy final. At Perth, India were 297/6, the last couple of dismissals giving Australia the edge, and in Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh were 292/7, again the last two dismissals - within a gap of 10 runs - giving Delhi a great deal of hope.

Even as fans at the Wankhede winced when Sachin Tendulkar got adjudged leg-before in another suspicious decision, costing him a possible century, they were served with an innings of rare aplomb from an 18-year-old here. Uttar Pradesh had promoted Tanmay Srivastava, who prefers to bat at either No 3 or 4, to the opening slot. And even as the youngster saw his partner Rohit Srivastava, captain Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina fall quickly at the other end, he showed enough determination to stick around.

Delhi bowlers Pradeep Sangwan and Sumit Narwal had kept the tempo high, riding on the bounce that the wicket provided. All that Tanmay needed to do—as Kaif indicated the day before in his list of dos and don’ts—was to wait until his chance came, till the ball lost a bit of shine and the bowlers tired.

The very first delivery he had faced off Amit Bhandari, the ball swinging on to his legs, Tanmay chipped it to mid-wicket for four. The stroke may have given him a lot of confidence—especially given his recent form playing for the India Under-19 team. However, Tanmay decided to take it slow as he understood how UP were placed precariously enough to lose the initiative. The next eight deliveries he faced saw no run being scored as the batsman tried his best to settle down.

Eventually, as he batted for another 165 deliveries, striking 12 boundaries more and a six, the cricketer from Kanpur - slightly built and in his second year of domestic cricket—went on to score 105, before slashing a wide enough delivery that should’ve been left alone, to the gully. Delhi celebrated as the highest scorer for the day departed.

Tanmay’s partner for most of his innings and close friend, Ravikant Shukla, gained from the 101-run partnership for the fourth wicket. Shukla stayed on till the end of the day’s play, scripting an unbeaten 80 and will come out to bat again on Thursday morning.

For Delhi, who did a good job in picking the early wickets, Sangwan remained the most impressive bowler for the day. Though he and Narwal both picked three wickets each, Sangwan’s dismissal of Tanmay finally managed to bring Delhi back into the game. The batsman, for the record, had been dropped when he was on 13 by Narwal, an opportunity missed which otherwise would’ve led to a different story altogether.

SCOREBOARD

Uttar Pradesh (1st innings): R Srivastava lbw Narwal 6,T Srivastava c Dhawan b Sangwan 105, S Raina lbw Sangwan 16, Md Kaif c Chopra b Nanda 16, R Shukla batting 80, P Chawla c Jain b Narwal 20, A Khan c Chopra b Sangwan 15,P Kumar c Manhas b Narwal 8, B Kumar batting 6; Extras (b-1, lb-13, nb-5, wb-1): 20; Total (for 7 wkts, 90 overs) 292

Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-60, 3-99, 4-200, 5-231, 6-274, 7-285

Bowling: Sangwan 21-5-73-3, Bhandari 17-3-60-0, Narwal 20-4-66-3,Bhatia 16-3-34-0, Nanda 15-2-37-1, Manhas 1-0-8-0.