Twenty-six wickets tumbled on the opening day at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad as neither Gujarat nor Haryana could gain the ascendancy. Only on one previous instance in the Ranji Trophy has more wickets fallen on a single day.

Deciding to bat, Haryana's innings lasted 31.5 overs as left-arm seamer Rush Kalaria and off-spinner Ramesh Powar shared nine wickets between them.

Gujarat's first innings concluded in the 30th over, captain Parthiv Patel's 43 off 44 being the highest score in the match so far. Legspinner Amit Mishra claimed his 21st five-wicket haul and offspinner Jayant Yadav finished with 4 for 45 in 11 overs.

Haryana's second innings conformed to the same pattern as they went to stumps on 71 for 6 as Kalaria extended his wickets tally to eight for the day.

Maharashra prospered with fifties from opener Swapnil Gugale and Ankit Bawne against Vidarbha in Pune.

Gugale and Harshad Khadiwale added 39, but allrounder Shrikant Wagh broke the stand. Gugale then added fifty-plus stands with Rohit Motwani and Bawne to keep the Vidarbha bowlers at bay. All the Maharastra batsmen except Kedar Jadhav moved into double-figures. Jadhav was dismissed by Swapnil Bandiwar for 9, four balls after captain Motwani fell.

Gugale was undone by Rakesh Dhurv for 76 in the 60th over, but Bawne remained undefeated on 56, his third consecutive half-century and had good support from Rahul Tripathi, who grafted 38 from 116 balls.

A collective bowling effort helped Punjab bundle Delhi out for 249 in Patiala, but the visitors hit back with two before stumps.

Delhi had slipped to 84 for 5 having opted to bat, courtesy left-arm spinners Rajwinder Singh and Vinay Choudhary. Gautam Gambhir had begun the resistance with 44 off 73 deliveries, which was taken over by Rajat Bhatia and Manan Sharma, who added 55 for the sixth wicket.

Manan carried on to record a second first-class fifty and remained unbeaten on 77. He was supported by handy lower-order contributions from Sumit Narwal (18) and Varun Sood (30) as Delhi went past the 200-mark. But Sandeep Sharma removed Shivam Sharma and Parvinder Awana off successive balls to end the innings and finish with 3 for 38.

In reply, Punjab lost openers Jiwanjot Singh and Amitoze Singh in the third and fourth overs, leaving them 219 runs behind Delhi. Mandeep Singh and Himanshu Chawla were unbeaten on 2 and 7 respectively.

Basant Mohanty, who extended his wickets tally to 38, and Alok Mangaraj collected four each as Odisha bowled Saurashta out for 218 in Cuttack.

After opting to bowl, the hosts struck at regular intervals as Saurashtra slumped to 77 for 5 and then to 99 for 8. However, Chirag Jani, coming in at No.7, raised a third first-class fifty that lent some respectability to the innings.

He was the dominant partner in a 47-run alliance for the ninth wicket with Siddharth Trivedi, before adding 72 for the last wicket with Sudeep Tyagi. Jani was left stranded on 99 when Mangaraj had Tyagi caught behind for 9.

The Odisha openers batted out one over before stumps to cap off a good day.