Double centuries for Zol, Samson

Vijay Zol announced his entry into the Ranji Trophy with an unbeaten double-century that allowed Maharashtra to declare their innings against Tripura and seek a win on the final day in Pune.

Zol, who hit a century on his first-class debut in August this year, continued his purple patch, hitting 19 fours and a six during his 324-ball effort. Zol added 199 runs with Harshad Khadiwale, who also scored a century, before putting up stands of 110 and 111 for the next two wickets with Kedar Jadhav and Ankit Bawne respectively. As soon as Zol reached his double-century, Maharashtra captain Rohit Motwani declared the innings.

In the remaining 17 overs, Sachin Chaudhari made a dent in Tripura's second innings, picking up the wicket of KB Pawan early. Tripura still trail by 128 runs and will have to repeat their first-innings performance to prevent a win for the home side.

Sanju Samson became the second young batsman on the day to hit a maiden double-century which helped his team, Kerala, push past Assam's first-innings total. Samson hit 23 fours and five sixes in his innings - his third first-class century - and was the eighth wicket to fall after he had ascertained points for first-innings lead for his team.

Kerala started the day trailing by more than 200 runs, but Samson added useful stands of 83 and 70 for the fourth and the fifth wickets to take Kerala closer to 300.

Assam were also in contention of a first-innings lead when they had Kerala reduced to 298 for 7, but Samson added 59 with Chovvakaran Shahid for the eighth wicket, taking Kerala firmly into the lead.

Pragyan Ojha and Ashish Reddy shared three wickets each on the third day to trigger an Andhra collapse that resulted in Hyderabad managing a first-innings lead.

Andhra were in a comfortable position overnight at 85 for 1, and would have eyed the lead in the morning but Ashish Reddy made the first breakthrough in the seventh over of the morning, dismissing Marripuri Suresh, before Ojha joined in four overs later, introducing a wobble in the Andhra innings. The situation was further worsened when Ojha and Reddy removed three middle-order batsmen, including Amol Muzumdar, within the space of 10 deliveries, turning the innings on its head.

Andhra hobbled after that and finished on 185, meaning they had lost nine wickets on the third day with the addition of 100 runs.

Hyderabad responded by putting on 96 by the end of the day, stretching the lead to 132, but with only a day remaining, the possibility of an outright result remains low.

Rishi Dhawan's seventh five-wicket haul in first-class cricket placed Himachal Pradesh in a strong position to force a result against Goa in the curtailed match in Dharamsala. They need to take 10 Goa wickets on the final day to complete a huge win.

Himachal declared the innings on the third morning as soon as Bipul Sharma scored the remaining 14 runs to get to his maiden first-class century, then Dhawan immediately put Goa in a dire situation by picking up two wickets in his first seven balls. Rohan Belekar and Ravikant Shukla resisted with a century stand for the third wicket, but it was Dhawan again who provided Himachal with an opening when he had Belekar trapped in front.

The rest of Goa's batting, apart from a fighting half-century by Shadab Jakati, folded by the end of the day, conceding a mammoth 315-run lead. With 10 overs remaining in the day, Himachal asked the visiting team to follow on, but Goa survived the mini-session without any loss.