UP surge to 481 with Kuldeep, Saurabh tons

Maiden first-class centuries from Kuldeep Yadav and Saurabh Kumar lifted Uttar Pradesh to 481 against Baroda in Nasik. UP had been reduced to 207 for 7 on the opening day before an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 153 between Kuldeep and Saurabh took them to 360 for 7 at stumps. That partnership extended to 192 after play resumed, although the duo fell short of the record eighth-wicket stand for UP - 204 between Anand Shukla and Sagir Ahmed against Rajasthan in 1961-62.

Sagar Mangalorkar, the right-arm pacer, broke through for Baroda, having Saurabh caught for 105. A run-out ended Kuldeep's stay, after he had added 43 more for the ninth wicket with Imtiaz Ahmed. Kuldeep had made 117. Imtiaz further shored up UP by dominating a last-wicket partnership of 39 with Ankit Rajpoot and staying not out on 41. Managalorkar and Babashafi Pathan took three wickets each.

Baroda lost five wickets in their reply, but Kedar Devdhar struck an unbeaten 120 to take them to 242 for 5. Devdhar and Aditya Waghmode put on 82 for the first wicket before Baroda lost wickets in a cluster. It took an unbroken 91-run sixth-wicket stand between Devdhar and Irfan Pathan (51*) to put the innings back on track. Medium-pacer Imtiaz Ahmed inflicted the bulk of the damage with three wickets. Baroda trail by 239 runs.

At the Palam Ground in Delhi, Shreevats Goswami's maiden double-century propelled Bengal to 475 for 9 before they declared against Madhya Pradesh.

After Bengal were reduced to 88 for 4, Goswami and Abhimanyu Easwaran had put on 97 for the fifth wicket to take Bengal to 185 for 4 at stumps on a truncated first day.

The duo could only add 17 more to that before Easwaran was trapped lbw by Chandrakant Sakure for 80. Goswami batted on and was helped by contributions from Pragyan Ojha (32), Veer Pratap Singh (24) and Sayan Ghosh (20*) as he stayed unbeaten on 225. Sakure finished with 3 for 105 and Puneet Datey took 4 for 105. MP lost Aditya Shrivastava for a first-ball duck before ending the day on 19 for 1, trailing by 456.

Mayank Sidhana struck 115 while captain Gurkeerat Singh fell seven short of a century as Punjab put up 468 against Mumbai at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot. Mumbai lost early wickets in reply, and were reduced to 8 for 2 at stumps.

The day had begun with Punjab on 216 for 4, with Gitansh Khera on 4 and Sidhana on 11. Khera fell for a patient 16 that came off 64 balls after which Sidhana and Gurkeerat came together for a sixth-wicket partnership of 178 that pushed the score past 400. But Punjab collapsed to lose their last five wickets for 34 runs.

The slide began with Gurkeerat's dismissal for 93, caught behind off Tushar Deshpande. Sidhana fell to the same bowler in his next over, and though Manpreet Gony scored 31, the lower order was dismissed quickly. Suryakumar Yadav took a career-best 4 for 47.

Punjab used four bowlers for the 7.2 bowlers they sent down. Shreyas Iyer was dismissed for a second-ball duck and Armaan Jaffer was trapped lbw by right-arm medium-pacer Kamal Passi. Mumbai were behind by 460 runs with eight wickets in hand.

Tamil Nadu captain Abhinav Mukund led a strong reply to Gujarat's 307, but fell one run short of a century as TN ended the second day on 154 for 2 in Belgavi.

Abhinav and Kaushik Gandhi offset the early loss of Laxmesha Suryaprakash, who was caught behind off Rush Kalaria for 6, with a second-wicket stand of 141. Kalaria struck for a second time, bowling Abhinav on 99 shortly before stumps. Gandhi remained not out on 43.

Earlier, Gujarat had resumed their first innings on 267 for 7 with Axar Patel on 28 and Chintan Gaja on 2. Axar was the eighth man dismissed, for 44, before the innings ended with Gaja's dismissal for 20. Left-arm medium-pacer T Natarajan took 3 for 86 for TN.