Defending champion Rajasthan are all set to retain the Ranji Trophy 2011-12 after ensuring a huge lead against hosts Tamil Nadu at stumps, on the fourth day of the final on Sunday. Replying to Rajasthan's mammoth first innings score of 621, Tamil Nadu, who began the day at 66 for three, buckled under pressure with Dinesh Karthik playing a lone hand while scoring a valiant 150. Not opting to enforce the follow-on, Rajasthan batted a second time and were 21 for no loss at stumps and would have kept the champagne in the ice bucket ahead of the celebrations today when the five-day game concludes. Despite the spotlight on the pitch that came in for some heavy criticism for its lack of pace and low bounce, the Rajasthan bowlers did a fine job to restrict Tamil Nadu whose line-up included five players with international experience, but, barring Karthik, flopped miserably. For Rajasthan, the seamers did the bulk of damage. Rituraj Singh picked up four for 76 while fellow-new ball bowler Pankaj Singh returned 2 for 58 and Sumit Mathur 2 for 53.
Bist opened up after a slow passage, collecting four boundaries in the space of 24 deliveries to move to 43. His half-century duly came before the lunch interval, off 107 balls with a drive past mid-off for four. When he clipped Kaushik for a single to move to 59, Bist became the first Rajasthan batsman to aggregate 1,000 runs in a Ranji season. The previous was Hanumant Singh's 869 runs in 1966-67. So all rajasthani Must be ready to Celebrate Ranji Tropy wins for consecutive second year.
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