Gujarat seamers wreck Rajasthan

Gautam Gambhir added only 24 to his overnight 123, but rapid half-centuries from Parvinder Awana at No. 8 and Sumit Narwal at No. 10 boosted Delhi to 422 at the Roshanara Club Ground. Delhi's bowlers then consolidated the advantage by ripping through Saurashtra, leaving their team well placed to take a huge first-innings lead.

Awana made 61 off 69 balls, while Narwal smashed five sixes in his 65 off 70 deliveries.

Awana then struck in each of his first two overs in Saurashtra's first innings, dismissing Chirag Pathak and Sagar Jogiyani to reduce them to 16 for 2. Rajat Bhatia, bowling first change, chipped in with two more wickets before Awana returned to dismiss Arpit Vasavada to compete the set of top-three batsmen. Bhatia added a third as well before stumps, leaving Saurashtra 290 behind and only the lower order remaining.

Seven of Haryana's top-nine batsmen got into double-figures scores but only one went on to make a half-century - and No. 9 Jayant Yadav made only 51 not out - as they were dismissed for 283 on the second day in Patiala. Punjab managed to wipe out the small deficit of 10 and take a lead of 11 without loss before stumps.

The day began with Haryana on 19 for 1 and everytime a partnership began to form, a wickets fell in pairs. They went from 123 for 3 to 135 for 5, and from 170 for 5 to 173 for 7 and then from 259 for 7 to 283 all out. Rajwinder Singh and Sarabjit Ladda too three wickets each for Punjab.

Having limited the first-innings deficit to just 10, Punjab's openers Manan Vohra and Jiwanjot Singh added 21 before the end of the day.

Biplab Samantray began his season with a century but Odisha's lower order crumbled and they frittered their sound overnight position of 223 for 5. They were dismissed for 311 in 123.1 overs with Shrikant Mundhe taking 4 for 103 and Dominic Joseph took 3 for 57. Maharashtra's reply was strong; their openers added an unbeaten 126. Harshad Khadiwale was unbeaten on 76, while Chirag Khurana made 48 not out.

Rajasthan 172 for 8 (Arjit 44, Kalaria 3-47, Chaudhary 3-52) trail Gujarat 340 (Merai 74, Panchal 68, Pankaj 3-55) by 168 runs
Scorecard

The Gujarat seamers shared eight Rajasthan wickets to set the team's sight on a first-innings lead in Jaipur. Rush Kalaria and Ishwar Chaudhary picked three wickets apiece but the initial damage was done by Kushang Patel, who dismissed the Rajasthan openers with the team on 39 runs.

Rajasthan's batsmen kept getting starts but none of them could go on to delivery for long enough to revive the team. There was only one half-century stand - 62 for the fifth wicket between Rajesh Bishnoi and Arjit Gupta - but once it was was broken, the wickets continued to fall. At the end of the day, Rajasthan trailed by 168 runs with only two wickets remaining. Akshar Patel and Ramesh Powar had bowled on three out of 51 overs.

Gujarat's lower order had not been able to cause much dent on scoring either. Soon after Bhargav Merai was dismissed for 74, Gujarat lost the big wicket of Akshar too. The last five wickets could only add 38 runs as Pankaj Singh cleaned up the tail.