Bansal, Mehul Patel dominate on 17-wicket day in Lahli

The bowlers called the shots in Lahli where 17 wickets fell on the opening day between Gujarat and Railways in the third round of the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy. After being put in, Gujarat were shot out for 187, before fighting back to leave Railways at 63 for 7.

Gujarat were wrecked by left-arm medium pacer Deepak Bansal, who took his maiden first-class five-wicket haul. Parthiv Patel, the Gujarat captain, top-scored with 61, but found support only from Chirag Gandhi (30), with whom he added 58 for the fifth wicket. Gujarat were also lifted by late contributions from Rush Kalaria, who scored 28 at No. 8, and Mehul Patel, who stayed unbeaten on 22. Bansal finished with 6 for 46 in 16 overs.

Mehul Patel then ran through the Railways middle-order to finish with 4 for 22 after seven overs. Saurabh Wakaskar and Shivakant Shukla 's 20-run opening stand was the best partnership Railways could put together on the day, with three of their top-six dismissed for ducks. Karn Sharma, the Railways captain, stayed not out on 22.

Sayan Mondal cracked his maiden first-class century to give Bengal a strong start against Punjab at the Lohnu Cricket Ground in Bilaspur. Mondal struck 135, with the help of 22 fours, as Bengal scored 332 for 5 in 89 overs.

Mondal offset the early loss of Abhimanyu Easwaran by putting on 102 for the second wicket with Sudip Chatterjee. He added 140 more for the next wicket with Agniv Pan before he was caught behind off Manpreet Gony. Pan added 39 more with Manoj Tiwary, the captain, before being caught behind off the left-arm spin of Vinay Choudhary. Tiwary contributed 45 and was dismissed 10 balls before stumps.

Sandeep Sharma and Choudhary took two wickets each, and Gony took one.

Half-centuries from Aditya Shrivastava and Rajat Patidar drove Madhya Pradesh to 239 for 2 against Mumbai at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur. Shrivastava scored 87 and put on 54 with Mukul Raghav for the opening wicket. Raghav was caught behind off Abhishek Nayar, after which Patidar joined Shrivastava. The two batted almost 38 overs and added 126 for the second wicket. Left-arm spinner Vijay Gohil ended the association by dismissing Shrivastava. But Patidar batted out the remaining overs and stayed not out on 83. He had batted 31.3 overs with Devendra Bundela, the MP captain, and added 59 unbeaten runs for the third wicket.

Uttar Pradesh scored 207 for the loss of one wicket in 90 overs against Tamil Nadu at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala. Opening batsman Samarth Singh, playing in only his second first-class match, compiled a debut century and scored an unbeaten 115 off 247 balls. Samarth laid a strong platform with Tanmay Shrivastava, with whom he put on 109 for the first wicket. Shrivastava was caught off Washington Sundar, the offspinner. He had faced 182 balls for his 53. Umang Sharma and Samarth then got together and played 32.1 overs together, during which they added 98 runs.