Gambhir leads Delhi's response

Gautam Gambhir shrugged off his recent indifferent start to Test cricket with his 17th first-class century, a 181-ball 151, and added 199 runs for the second wicket with Abhishek Sharma (73) at the Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad. Delhi ended the day on 347 for 4, 133 runs ahead of Gujarat. Gambhir smacked the bowling for 20 fours during his four-hour stay - more boundaries than the entire Gujarat team. After he and Sharma departed, Mithun Manhas and Vijay Dahiya took over the reins and frustrated the bowlers further with a stand worth 99 runs. Dahiya fell for 43 right before stumps, but Manhas remained unbeaten on 66. Parthiv Patel, playing his first Ranji game, took two catches.

Murtaza Lodhgar destroyed Karnataka with a six-wicket haul, restricting them to 179 after Bengal had scored 315 in their first innings at Jadavpur University Campus in Kolkata. In the morning, Sourav Ganguly fell for 27 off 76 balls - not quite the big score he needed after a lean run at international level. Bengal folded up after he left, but Karnataka's capitulation later, when seven wickets fell for 64 runs, was more damaging. Bengal had a ball left to play before the day ended. They were 0 for 0 at stumps.

At the Karnail Singh Stadium in Delhi, Mumbai could add only 100 runs to their overnight total as Harvinder Singh struck early, removing Vinod Kambli and Romesh Powar cheaply, and added two more to his tally to end with figures of 6 for 75. Due to a solid batting effort by the lower order, Mumbai rallied to 361, and then had Railways in immediate trouble. Ajit Agarkar removed both openers with 53 on the board, and Nilesh Kulkarni dismissed Siddharth Verma a little later. Railways ended the day at 111 for 3, still 250 runs behind.

At the Chidambaram Stadium, Hyderabad recovered to 163 all out from their overnight precarious position of 83 for 5, only to see Tamil Nadu go to 183 by the end of the day at. Sadagoppan Ramesh, who had hoped for a Test recall, was dismissed for 29, But Sivaramakrishnan Vidyut (97 not out) and Subramaniam Badrinath, on 56, were still at the crease. It rounded up a good day for Tamil Nadu, after Ramakrishnan Ramkumar eked out three more batsmen with his left-arm spin to end with 6 for 57 in 31 overs.

Venugopal Rao (140) added to his overnight hundred and, along with Khatib Sahabuddin (86), took Andhra Pradesh to 361 in Indore. Narendra Hirwani claimed 4 for 89 before his team responded with 155 for 4, built on the back of fifties from Naman Ojha (61) and Amay Khurasiya (50).

At Mohali, Punjab fought back from a precarious position at 43 for 3, and recovered to score 221 for 7 when stumps were called on the second day. They trailed Uttar Pradesh by 48 runs, and had a good chance of taking the first-innings lead while Pankaj Dharmani (83 not out) was at the crease. Yuvraj Singh scored a quick 52, laced with eight fours, and fell when Punjab had 114 runs on the board. Earlier, Gagandeep Singh dismissed the last two Uttar Pradesh batsmen to claim 5 for 68, his ninth five-wicket haul.

Assam, in Guwahati, scored 273 as Sukhvinder Singh scored 48 while his lower-order mates played out deliveries. He then took a wicket, Kiran Powar's (43), as Baroda made their way to 162 for 4. Jacob Martin was unbeaten on 58.