Manhas puts Delhi in dominant position

Veteran batsman Mithun Manhas scored 18 more than the whole Odisha first innings to take Delhi to a position from where they can force an outright win at Feroz Shah Kotla. His 21st first-class century was worth 95 more than the next best score in the match, the 66 by Sumit Narwal. They were also the only two 50-plus scores of the match.

With Narwal, Manhas added 139 for the seventh wicket, which itself was just four short of Odisha's total. Those numbers aside, Odisha had Delhi in a spot of bother at 163 for 6. Manhas and Narwal, though, proceeded to bat the visitors out of the game.

The Odisha openers batted out the five overs before stumps, but their side still needed 181 to make Delhi bat again.

Kedar Jadhav scored the first triple-century of the season, a 327 that came off just 312 balls. Out of those 228 came in boundaries. Only the third triple-century for Maharashtra, this was the second-highest score for them, overtaking Vijay Hazare's 316 not out but behind Bhausaheb Nimbalkar's 443 not out.

This was the 10th Ranji triple-century in the last six years, a huge increase in the rate of such occurrences from only 18 that had been scored in the entire history of Ranji Trophy before that.

Maharashtra also looted 399 runs in the day against a side that was coming off taking 20 cheap-ish wickets against Delhi's near-Test batting line-up. Almost relegated to the background was wicketkeeepr Rohit Motwani, who ended the day unbeaten on 146.

Maharashtra didn't declare despite reaching their third-highest total perhaps because of the flatness of the pitch where they can only aspire to take first-innings points, a pursuit that will be helped by the scoreboard pressure.

For more on the second day's play from Pune, click here.

Maharashtra were not the only team doing the piling-on on day two. All six of Tamil Nadu - only six got to bat - crossed fifty, and two of them, Dinesh Karthik and Baba Aparijith, scored centuries to take them to their highest score against former arch-rivals Karnataka.

This was also only the fourth instance in Ranji Trophy history when all of the top six of a side scored 50 or more in the same innings. The last time it happened, Karnataka were handing out the punishment, to UP in Kanpur, in 2010-11. Here they were at the receiving end.

What will worry them is the amount of turn available on the pitch. Yet their spinners couldn't do much to stop Aparajith from posting his maiden first-class century, and against Dinesh Karthik's 154 off 182 they were near helpless, except for the time when Karthik survived a bat-pad appeal when on 97.

The Karnataka openers played out the 10 overs given to them, but had a huge task ahead of them on the coming days.

Hemang Badani's first first-class century in six years propped up Vidarbha to 264, but by stumps Baroda had made giant strides towards ensuring three points from the game. Half-centuries from Aditya Waghmode and Abhimanyu Chahuhan took them to 192 for 2. If they get quick runs on day three, they can even push for an outright win.

Vidarbha began the day at 219 for 8, and the tail provided Badani enough support to bring up the century. Badani scored 26 of the 48 added on the day, but that was about the last good news for Vidarbha.

Waghmode, who scored a century in the first game of the season, continued the good form with a 60-run opening stand and then a 49-run partnership with Chauhan. The biggest partnership, though, was to follow as Chauhan and Solanki added an unbeaten 83 for the third wicket in close to 40 overs.