Hundreds aplenty as one-day championship kicks off

Amay Khurasiya hammered 157 to take Madhya Pradesh to a four-wicket win against Rajasthan at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Chasing 299, Khurasiya hit 19 fours and three sixes in his 134-ball innings that enabled MP to coast to victory with eight balls to spare. He was supported well by Abbas Ali (50) and Devendra Bundela (44). After losing the toss, Gagan Khoda struck a fine 116 to steer Rajasthan to 298 for 7. No other batsman crossed 30 for Rajasthan and in the end the total proved inadequate.

Railways, powered by Amit Pagnis's 143, coasted to a comfortable 59-run victory against Vidarbha at KL Saini Ground in Jaipur. After being sent in to bat, Pagnis and Tejinder Pal Singh (42) added 201 runs for the second wicket and set up the platform for Railways to finish on 310 for 6. Pagnis's innings included 17 fours and came in quick time. In their reply, Vidarbha were restricted to 251 for 9. The only fight came at the top of the order where Alind Naidu (72) and Faiz Fazal (52) added 110 runs to take the score to 136 for 1 but Shreyas Khanolkar (3 for 41) ran through the middle-order to reduce Vidarbha to 163 for 5 from which they didn't recover.

Punjab completed a resounding eight-wicket win after a fine bowling performance restricted Haryana to 196 for 9 at Harbax Singh Stadium in Delhi. Dinesh Mongia starred with the ball with 3 for 27 off nine overs while Shafiq Khan top-scored for Haryana with 45 in a match that was reduced to 43 overs a side. Ravneet Ricky led a strong Punjab reply, thumping 80 off 76 balls, and was ably supported by Sunny Sohel (40) and Mongia (43) as Punjab eased to 199 for 2 in the 41st over.

Sangram Singh's 93 and Vishal Bhatia's 4 for 29 sealed a 45-run win for Himachal Pradesh against Services at the Palam A Stadium in New Delhi. HP lost Nischal Gaur in the first over after they were asked to bat in a match reduced to 40 overs a team but Sangram and Sandeep Sharma (59) led the recovery with a 109-run stand for the second wicket. HP lost seven wickets for 104 runs to finish on 213. Services didn't get a partnership going and were in trouble at 4 for 77 and Bhatia rattled the lower-middle order to reduce them to 168 for 9.

A 100-ball 93 from Sivaramakrishnan Vidyut saw Tamil Nadu pile up 304 which proved too much for Kerala to chase as TN won by 49 runs . Subramaniam Badrinath (75) and Hemang Badani (74) joined in the run-fest with Vidyut to set Kerala a big target. Sony Cheruvathur fought a lone battle for Kerala with a career-best 80 but Badrinath rotated his bowlers - 10 bowlers were used - well to restrict Kerala to 255.

Powered by a career-best 117 from Chandrashekar Raghu, Karnataka reached 260 for 8 before Sunil Joshi and Balachandra Akhil shared five wickets between them to restrict Hyderabad to 188 for 9. Raghu was involved in two hundred plus partnerships - with Thilak Naidu (48) and Akhil (52) - that propelled Karnataka to a handy total. Arjun Yadav (43) and Shashank Nag put up a promising 70-run opening stand but once Joshi spun out both of them, Hyderabad lost wickets at regular intervals to lose their way in the run chase at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.

Venugopal Rao's 62-ball 104 and VVB Reddy's 4 for 27 secured a big 164-run victory for Andhra against Goa at the Nuclear Fuel Complex Ground in Secunderabad. T Suman (72) blasted two sixes and 10 fours to star in a 122-run opening stand before Rao took charge. He hit 15 fours to power Andhra to 303 before VVB Reddy and Syeb Sahabuddin shared seven wickets between them to bowl out Goa for a paltry 139.

I Sharma and Sohail Sharma shared seven wickets between them to bowl out Jammu & Kashmir for a meager 106 in 35.4 overs before Delhi coasted to a comfortable 10-wicket victory at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground. J&K reached 46 without loss before I Sharma rocked the top order, picking up the first four wickets. Shikhar Dhawan and Aakash Chopra rattled off the required runs in 15.5 overs to register an easy victory for the hosts.

Gujarat beat Maharashtra by two wickets in a low-scoring match on a bowler's day out at the Alembic Ground in Vadodara. Sidharth Trivedi and A Makda grabbed three wickets apiece as Gujarat shot out Maharashtra for 137 in 37.1 overs. In the Gujarat reply, Parthiv Patel top-scored with 33 but Suyash Burkul and Ranjit Khirid shared six wickets equally between them to keep Maharashtra in the hunt. AY Bramhabhatt chipped in with a vital 29 and the lower-order eked out crucial contributions to take Gujarat home.