Delhi ease to third win, Karnataka eye big lead

Delhi romped to their third outright win, beating Maharashtra by nine wickets inside two days in their Group A game at Feroz Shah Kotla. Seventeen wickets fell on the second day - to go with 14 on the first - as Delhi chased down a target of only 27.

The day began with Delhi in their first innings at 157 for 4, but they added only 73 more before they were bowled out in the 69th over. Dhruv Shorey hit his maiden first-class ton and remained unbeaten on 104 off 176 balls, with nine fours and four sixes. Samad Fallah and Shrikant Mundhe were Maharashtra's bowling leaders, taking nine wickets between them. Fallah's 5 for 45 was his 14th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.

Delhi, already ahead by 150 runs, then toppled Maharashtra cheaply again as the batsmen failed to convert starts into substantial scores. Sangram Atitkar was the top-scorer with 30 off 103 balls and formed a stand of 44 with Ankit Bawne for the fourth wicket - the second-highest partnership in the match. Manan Sharma then chipped away at the middle order to finish with 4 for 47 as Maharashtra were all out for 176.

Karnataka lost just three wickets while securing the first-innings lead on the second day against Odisha in Mysore. Robin Uthappa and Karun Nair were at the crease and their 127-run partnership for the fourth wicket promises a lot more. Uthappa struck eight fours and a six in his 83 while Nair was more sedate, hitting three fours and a six in his 130-ball 52.

Things had been dicey for Karnataka early on. R Samarth was dismissed off the second ball of the day but Mayank Agarwal and Abhishek Reddy put on a patient 77-run second-wicket stand before Reddy was trapped in front off the bowling of Basant Mohanty. Agarwal was third man out for 78 off 149 with the score at 128 after being caught behind to give Mohanty his second wicket. However, that was all the luck Odisha had.

Haryana earned a significant 48-run lead in a low-scoring encounter against Assam on the second day after bowling them out for 120. Not to be outdone this early, Assam hit back hit late in the day with three top-order wickets to Haryana to 15 for 3, an overall lead of 63.

On a day when 16 wickets fell, Haryana added only 28 runs to their overnight score of 140 for 7. Seamer Krishna Das recorded his fourth five-wicket haul in the season and finished with 6 for 56. Dhiraj Goswami picked up the other four wickets to fall. In reply, Assam's openers - Pallavkumar Das and Rahul Hazarika- added 34 before wickets fell in clumps. Gokul Sharma top-scored with a a 91-ball 43. Ashish Hooda did most of the damage with figures of 4 for 27 in 13.2 overs.

Despite Wasim Jaffer becoming the first man in history to score 10000 runs in Ranji Trophy cricket, Bengal enjoyed a dominant second day to turn the tables in their Group A game against Vidarbha in Kolkata. They added 117 runs to their overnight score of 217 for 7, primarily due to Sudip Chatterjee's third ton of the campaign and then reduced Vidarbha to 141 for 7 at stumps.

Chatterjee found able company in Pragyan Ojha and Ashoke Dinda who hung around and contributed with some runs of their own, but it was Chatterjee who did the bulk of the scoring - hitting 67 off 117 runs on the second day - to finish with a 200-ball 116.

In reply, Jaffer, who was only eight short of the 10000-run mark ahead of this game, stroked a lovely off-drive to claim the record and dedicated it to his family and well-wishers. "It's a big moment for me to score 10000 runs in one of the oldest and elite tournaments," he told PTI. "I always had the passion in me to play cricket. It's never easy to play for so many years. I always had the belief in myself. It's passion which keeps me going. "It's not just about scoring runs… the more important challenge is how you can get better everyday. I took it up as a challenge."

But Jaffer was bowled for 9 off the bowling of Ojha and though Faiz Fazal (63) and Ganesh Satish (36) resisted, Bengal's dominance could not be shaken as Ojha ran through the middle order to claim yet another five-wicket haul.