Vidarbha outclass Haryana but miss out on bonus point

Vidarbha earned six points from their eight-wicket win against Haryana in Rohtak, but they had two opportunities to gain a seventh by winning either by an innings or by ten wickets.

The third day began with Haryana on 103 for 3 in their second innings, trailing by 47 runs. They lost Priyank Tehlan and Jayant Yadav to Sandeep Singh in the 49th over with the score on 106, and then lost three more for five runs a while later to slump to 128 for 8. Sandeep took his fourth wicket, the innings' ninth, with Haryana three runs away from drawing level. However, Amit Vashisht scored an unbeaten 26 to help Haryana avoid the innings defeat and they were eventually dismissed for 183, setting Vidarbha 34 to win.

Vidarbha had knocked 16 runs off the target and were on course for the seventh point when Chanderpal Saini trapped Aniruddha Chore lbw. Saini picked up another scalp, that of Shiv Sundar Das, before Vidarbha reached the target in 15 overs to win inside three days.

"Grt win boys..won by 8 wkts. Good start to our campaign. Feels good to beat Haryana in their backyard. will Umesh for sure," Hemang Badani, the Vidarbha batsman, said on Twitter.

Left-arm quick Gagandeep Singh, playing in only his fourth first-class match, claimed his third five-for to give Baroda a handsome first-innings lead over Karnataka. The visitors threatened a comeback with four quick wickets, but an unbeaten 50-run stand between Abhimanyu Chauhan and Irfan Pathan thwarted them.

Karnataka started the day with two key men, Robin Uthappa and Stuart Binny at the wicket, but persistent Baroda kept picking up regular wickets. Bhargav Bhatt bowled Uthappa to make it 193 for 5, and Gagandeep accounted for Binny to reduce them to 269 for 7. The last five wickets had fallen for 21 runs.

Baroda then lost three of their batsmen for ducks, including captain Yusuf Pathan and first-innings centurion Aditya Waghmode. However, Chauhan and the other centurion from first innings, Irfan, made sure Karnataka will need nothing short of a miracle to come back and win this game.

Ghaziabad's Nehru Stadium could well be one of the most vociferous and hospitable crucibles of Indian domestic cricket. On the field, its team, Uttar Pradesh, though, doesn't make a ruckus but offers no freebies. Particularly not if they are Ranji Trophy points. At the end of the third day in their season opener against Delhi, UP were pushing for an outright victory over their much higher-rated and celebrated neighbours. Delhi, 197 for 4, were just 29 runs ahead at the end of the third day, with Mithun Manhas on 63 and Sehwag on 21. One more wicket for UP, and it could be the deluge they are waiting for.

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Only 2.1 overs of play were possible in Cuttack, and during that time Tamil Nadu scored one run and lost Abhinav Mukund lbw to Alok Mangaraj. The rest of the third day was ruined by rain, after the second was washed out completely, and the match looks destined to be drawn without the first innings being completed.