Shreyas century puts Karnataka on top

Shreyas Gopal's maiden first-class century and his century stand for the last wicket with Sreenath Aravind lifted Karnataka past 400 at the Eden Gardens. Ashok Dinda, who took all three Karnataka wickets that fell on the day, finished with figures of 7 for 87. In reply, Bengal lost opener Arindam Das to finish on 62 for 1, and trailed by 346 at stumps.

Shreyas was batting on 27 as Karnataka began the day on 237 for 7. They lost Vinay Kumar for 44 before they had added a run to their overnight total, and when Dinda dismissed Abhimanyu Mithun six overs later, they were 260 for 9. Bengal's hopes of bowling the visitors out cheaply hit a wall thereafter, as Shreyas - who had only scored 123 runs in eight previous first-class games - and Aravind extended the innings by another 35.3 overs while maintaining a run rate above four an over.

Shreyas dominated the last-wicket partnership - to which Aravind contributed 29 off 86 balls - and hauled Karnataka to 408 before he was last out for a 197-ball 145, which included 19 fours and a six. The stand of 148 was a tenth-wicket record for Karnataka, going past the 121 that Yere Goud and NC Aiyappa had added against Rajasthan in 2007-08.

An unbeaten century from Abhinav Mukund helped Tamil Nadu build on the healthy first-innings advantage established by their spin trio and end day two in a commanding position against Jammu & Kashmir in Dindigul. At stumps, Tamil Nadu were ahead by 321, and their second-wicket pair of Abhinav and B Aparajith had put on an unbroken 130-run stand. Abhinav was batting on 110 from 144 balls, with 11 fours, and Aparajith on a 97-ball 53, with five fours.

Resuming on 28 for 3 in response to TN's first-innings score of 254, J&K lost their first wicket in the sixth over of the morning, Ian Dev Singh lbw to the left-arm spinner Rahil Shah. Wickets kept tumbling thereafter, with only Hardeep Singh resisting for any length of time to make an unbeaten 89-ball 35 at No. 8. J&K were bowled out for 132, with Shah and offspinner Malolan Rangarajan picking up four wickets apiece. Left-arm spinner Aushik Srinivas took the other two wickets as the seamer L Balaji, playing his 100th first-class match, only sent down three overs.

An unbeaten maiden half-century from Puneet Datey extended Madhya Pradesh's score to 296 before their bowlers exploited a seam-friendly surface at the Holkar Stadium to reduce Uttar Pradesh to 149 for 6 at stumps. It could have been worse for UP, as Datey and Ishwar Pandey had them reeling at 8 for 3, but a half-century from Umang Sharma and useful scores from the lower middle-order batsmen steered them to relative safety.

MP broke through when Ishwar curled one between the bat and pad of Tanmay Srivastava, and Datey had moved one the other way to get Mukul Dagar, the other left-hander in UP's top three, caught behind. In between, Pandey had Prashant Gupta caught by Sanjay Mishra at square leg.

Ishwar picked up three wickets before limping off in the middle of his 13th over, the 33rd of UP's innings, pulling up just as he was about to deliver the fifth ball of the over. Sanjay, making his first-class debut, picked up two wickets including that of Umang, who was bowled shouldering arms to a ball that tailed back sharply and took his off stump. Umang made a 120-ball 58, with seven fours. UP were 104 for 6 at the fall of his wicket, before Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar saw them through to stumps with an unbroken 45-run stand.

Resuming on 195 for 7, MP swelled their score to 296 thanks to Datey, who made an unbeaten 63 off 114 balls, and his eighth-wicket stand of 85 with Sanjay, who made a 108-ball 35. Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav broke the partnership and quickly dismissed the last two to finish with figures of 4 for 48.

There was no play at the Karnail Singh Stadium - after only 8.2 overs had been possible on the first day - as rain further reduced the chance of either Railways or Mumbai claiming an advantage.