Delhi ahead on a 13-wicket day at Kotla

Feroz Shah Kotla was at its early-season testing best on a day reminiscent of the match played between the same teams four years ago. Thirteen wickets fell on the first day: Odisha were bowled out for 143, and Delhi were made to fight hard for 31 overs that consumed three wickets and cost just 62 runs.

Delhi came in with a new-look pace attack, with Parvinder Awana and Pawan Suyal replacing Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra. In the company of Sumit Narwal, the only quick Delhi retained form their previous match, the hosts quickly reduced Odisha to 63 for 5. To make matters worse, Narwal also struck Natraj Behera in the abdomen. The captain had to retire-hurt.

Behera, though, came back and shared a 20-run ninth-wicket stand with Alok Mangaraj. Manan Sharma, the debutant and son of Ajay Sharma, took four wickets with left-arm spin to polish off the tail. Delhi were made to work hard before stumps, losing three early wickets, including captain Shikhar Dhawan.

Five days short of his 36th birthday, Hemang Badani was a bit nervous going out to play at Vadodara's Moti Bagh Stadium. The last time he played there, eight years ago, he ended up in a hospital for a CT scan, but this time he dug in for a little over five hours to score an unbeaten 85 that lent respectability to Vidarbha's effort after they had been 16 for 3. Shalabh Shrivastava added 97 with him but fell in the middle session, starting another collapse that had them down at 129 for 6, but Badani found more support from the lower order.

With captain Sairaj Bahutule, Badani added 24 runs for the seventh wicket. Bahutule scored only five of those. With Amol Jungade he added an unbeaten 54 to keep Baroda on the field. This was Badani's 55th score of 50 or more in first-class cricket.

On a dry surface that began to turn appreciably enough for Karnataka to introduce spin as early as the sixth over of the day, all four of Tamil Nadu's batsmen that batted scored fifties to put Tamil Nadu in a commanding position. Karnataka did come back with the wickets of openers either side of lunch, but Aparajith and Badrinath thwarted them with some disciplined batting for the rest of the day.

Arun Karthik tried to hit out against spin and scored exactly 50 before he fell to part-time offspin of Ganesh Satish. Abhinav Mukund fell soon after, and Tamil Nadu went from 106 for 0 to 110 for 2. Karnataka sensed an opportunity, and went hard at the two new batsmen. There was a time when Tamil Nadu went without a boundary for 22 overs. The first 15 overs after lunch yielded just 18.

The two batsmen, however, didn't throw it away with a loose release shot, and ended the day unbeaten. Aparajith was approaching a maiden first-class century, and Badrinath was 37 short of 8000 first-class runs.

Kedar Jadhav, who scored a match-winning fifty on his IPL debut for Delhi Daredevils, ruthlessly attacked an already deflated Uttar Pradesh attack as Maharashtra racked up 339 for 3 against their much-fancied opponents.

On a flat track, missing the injured Praveen Kumar and RP Singh, UP desperately needed to take wickets with the new ball, but failed. After opener Harshad Khadiwale and No. 3 Sangram Atitkar tired them out with patient half-centuries, Jadhav launched an assault. He reached the century in the last over of the day, going at better than a run a ball almost throughout the innings. Ankit Bhawne too went after quick runs, and was unbeaten on 60 off 90.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar toiled for 24 overs and eked out two wickets at the cost of only two an over.

For more on Jadhav's innings, click here.