Kaul, Tiwary take their teams close to three points

If Jiwanjot Singh doesn't get you, Uday Kaul will. Krishnakatant Upadhyay became the first bowler to get Jiwanjot Singh out for less than 100, but Railways ran into another Punjab batsman on a roll. Uday, yet to be dismissed this season, remained unbeaten on 96 to guided Punjab to a first-innings lead with five wickets still in hand.

Jiwanjot fell for 44 trying to repair the innings from a poor start of 35 for 3, which brought his average down to 138.33, but he left the reins over to a man with no average this season. Uday remained unbeaten at stumps, four short of what can be his second century in three matches. Amitoze Singh was an able ally with 55.

The first order of the day, though, was to take the remaining three Railways wickets, which Sandeep Sharma and Uday's younger brother, Siddarth, did for just 12 runs.

Bengal 220 for 4 (Tiwary 102*, Das 75) trail Gujarat 260 (Smit Patel 67, Parthiv Patel 61, Sarkar 4-60, Dinda 3-73) by 40 runs
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The game in Kolkata followed a similar pattern with Bengal taking the remaining Gujarat wickets cheaply and heading towards a first-innings lead. Manoj Tiwary scored his first century of this Ranji season, and remained unbeaten with just 41 required to go past Gujarat.

Gujarat began the day 230 for 6, but Sourav Sarkar and Ashok Dinda ran through the rest. In reply, Bengal were 19 for 2 early in the piece, and Wriddhiman Saha and Laxmi Shukla would have looked at each other anticipating what is increasingly becoming routine repair work for them.

This time, though, Tiwary and Subhomoy Das saved them the trouble by putting on 101 for the third wicket. Das did majority of the scoring during that partnership, but Tiwary opened up soon, reaching his 17th first-class century just before stumps. Just 12 half-centuries and 17 hundreds point to a superb conversion rate.

Hyderabad 186 (Akshath Reddy 51, Jadeja 6-71) trail Saurashtra 260 (Jackson 67, Ashish Reddy 6-56) by 76 runs
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If he is not scoring triple-centuries, he is taking six-wicket hauls. Ravindra Jadeja ran through Hyderabad to give Saurashtra a crucial 74-run lead in a low-scoring match in Hyderabad. Jadeja's feat overshadowed Ashish Reddy's, who too took six wickets on first-class debut to restrict Saurashtra to 260.

Saurashtra began the day at 251 for 7, but Ashish helped Hyderabad take the last three wickets for just nine. Opener Akshath reddy then carried on the momentum, adding 52 with Ravi Teja, who is captaining the side in the absence of the injured VVS Laxman. Offspinner Kamlesh Makvana, though, got rid of both of them, followed by Jadeja's burst that cost Saurashtra just 71 runs. Dilip Doshi's son, Nayan, played his part with two late wickets with his left-arm spin.

Veteran Rashmi Parida and youngster Robin Bist combined together to all but ensure defending champions Rajasthan their first set of three points this season. Responding to Madhya Pradesh's 256, they were 87 for 3 when Parida joined Bist. When Bist finally fell, 15 short of a century, Rajasthan were nearing in on a first-innings lead.

In the absence of regular captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Rajasthan had to reckon with Ishwar Pandey's four-wicket haul, two of whose wickets were captain Vineet Saxena and Ashok Menaria. In their moment of vulnerability, though, Parida and Bist carried them through.

For good measure, Parida added 50 with Puneet Yadav and 82 with Dishant Yagnik to make sure the advantage wouldn't be lost.