The Dholpure brothers have been making waves all over the Ranji circuit for Madhya Pradesh and today it was Delhi’s turn to suffer. Disciplined bowling by medium-pacer Sunil Dholpure caught the home team’s fancied batsmen unawares on the opening day of their Elite Division Group A Ranji Trophy league match against Madhya Pradesh at the Jamia ground here today.At stumps the hosts, opting to bat first on a wicket that helped the seamers early on, were struggling at 212-7 with Dholpure’s figures reading 4-50. This also jolted Delhi’s hopes of recording their maiden outright win of the season.Dholpure (25), whose younger brother Sachin is an opening batsman, was playing only his second Ranji match, having made a memorable debut against reigning champions Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium last month with a 5-68 haul that helped his team take the vital first innings lead and two points.Sunil isn’t the conventional new-ball bowler who relies on speed; he uses line and control instead and today pegged at off and just outside the off stump to lure batsmen into making mistakes. While his new ball partner Sanjay Pandey (2-74) is quick off the wicket, Dholpure swung the ball both ways to contain and trouble the batsmen.Dholpure’s wickets included Shikhar Dhawan (29), Rajat Bhatia (centurion in the last game against Railways) and Abhinav Bali (both for zero) and Mithun Manhas (26).Shikhar and Bhatia got out in similar fashion, driving away from the body into Abbas Ali at slip. Manhas was taken behind by keeper Naman Ojha while Bali misread an incoming delivery to be declared leg before.If the elder brother was the cynosure of all eyes at the Jamia ground today, the focus is expected to be Sachin when he opens the MP innings on Sunday. A compact opening batsman, Sachin scored 107 and 52 against Karnataka at Bangalore last week.BRIEF SCORES• At Nehru Stadium, Guwahati: Tamil Nadu 288-3 in 90 overs (Sridharan Sriram 82, Hemang Badani batting 74, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan 52, S Badrinath 50) vs Assam.• At Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera: Gujarat 201-2 in 91 overs (Niraj Patel batting 107, N Modi 72) vs Railways.• At Gymkhana Ground, Hyderabad: Hyderabad 170 in 77.2 overs (Daniel Manohar 54; Rakesh Patel 5-40, Rajesh Pawar 4-21) vs Baroda 23-4 in 10 overs (NP Singh 3-6).• At PCA Stadium, Mohali: Maharashtra 123 in 41.3 overs (VRV Ringh 4-45, Reetinder Singh Sodhi 3-23) vs Punjab 174-0 in 46 overs (Ravneet Ricky batting 77, Reetinder Singh Sodhi batting 89).• At Jamia Millia Cricket Ground, New Delhi: Delhi 212-7 in 88 overs (Aakash Chopra 37, Sarandeep Singh batting 31; Sunil Dholpure 4-50) vs Madhya Pradesh.• At Rajinder Singh Institute Ground, Bangalore: Andhra 237 (AG Pradeep 59, M Faiq 74; Sunil Joshi 5-78) vs Karnataka 23-0 in 6 overs.• At Jadavpur University Campus, Kolkata: Mumbai 254-1 in 90 overs (Wasim Jaffer batting 139, Vinit Indulkar batting 64) vs Bengal.
