Fifteen wickets fall in Cuttack

Odisha 70 for 5 trail Uttar Pradesh 160 (Deepak Behera 6-37) by 90 runs
Scorecard

Needing an outright win to stay alive in the tournament, Odisha had no choice but to take the risk of providing a green pitch to one of the best seam attacks in the country. As it turned out, Odisha were slightly behind the curve, but not too far behind. After bowling Uttar Pradesh out for 160, Odisha fell to 49 for 5 before recovering to end the day at 70 for 5.

The day began with a solid opening partnership by UP, who were asked to bat first, but once the wickets began to fall they kept falling. Biplab Samantray took the first wicket in the 18th over, but after that Deepak Behera took over. He claimed his second five-for and also his best figures in first-class cricket.

Mukul Dagar, Umang Sharma, Prashant Gupta and Mohammad Kaif fell within the next 11 overs, and UP were 72 for 5. After a brief partnership between Ali Murtaza and Akshdeep Nath, Odisha burst through again and the last five fell for 50 runs. However, there was no respite for Odisha. Their openers were back in the seventh over of the innings, both Imtiaz Ahmed and Ankit Rajpoot taking a wicket each. The returning Sudeep Tyagi was yet to be introduced. When Tyagi came on, he took the wicket of Niranjan Behera. The match was set up for an exciting finish.

Delhi 254 for 4 (Chand 82) Vidarbha 188 for 8 (Badani 40) v
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This match has the most riding on it among the Group B contests. Two points separate Vidarbha and Delhi, placed third and fourth, and both need an outright win to be assured of a place in the quarters. A first-innings lead scenario leaves their fate in the hands of other results, but the hosts played safe and rolled out a flat pitch on which Delhi made decent progress to end at 254 for 5.

Unmukt Chand fell short of what would have been a third first-class century, but it was hard work getting wickets on that track. Only once did Maharashtra manage two in a row - Chand and Mohit Sharma in the 60th and 65th overs - but that didn't alarm Delhi. Mithun Manhas and Mohit scored 50s to complement Chand's effort.

Karnataka 306 for 4 (Gautam 132*, Binny 115*) v Maharashtra
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Karnataka began the match with a slim outside chance of making it to the quarters, but it was evaporating when Stuart Binny came in to join CM Gautam at 91 for 4. The two, though, added an undefeated 215 for the fifth wicket to keep Karnataka's hopes alive.

There was some way to go for the two to break the state record the fifth-wicket partnership of 336, between Syed Kirmani and Kartik Jeshwant, but this was Gautam's third century of the season, taking his season tally to 790, behind only Jiwanjot Singh, Ravindra Jadeja and another wicket-keeper batsman Parthiv Patel.

The stand-in captain, Stuart Binny, took his tally past 500 with his first century of the year. Binny was the quicker man in the partnership, scoring 115 off just 142 balls. Gautam was more sedate, but he played a pivotal role coming in at 18 for 2.

Rain and bad weather in Chennai meant Tamil Nadu and Haryana didn't even come out for the toss in Chennai.