Delhi lay the foundation

But the visitors will need a radical jump in their scoring rate and work out the precise moment of declaration for an outright win within the 180 remaining overs.

Taking 18 minutes, seven runs and 3.3 overs on Saturday morning, Parvinder Awana got his first five-wicket haul as the last set of Saurashtra batsmen went out and Delhi openers Aakash Chopra and Shikhar Dhawan walked in. The skipper and his deputy played and missed plenty against the left-arm pair of Sandeep Jobanputra and Balkrishna Jadeja, but suppressed their hunger for shots till lunch. Chopra finally reached his half-century in 121 balls with just four boundaries before falling at slip, having been lured to attack by Rakesh Dhruv.

Kohli punishes

Virat Kohli scored a boundary off just his second ball and went on to make use of every loose ball that leaked from the otherwise tight bowling of Kamlesh Makhwana and Dhruv. Kohli got to his fifty in just 85 balls, with a straight six off Dhruv, but was unfortunately declared run out on 69 by umpire Umesh Sood to a direct throw from Cheteshwar Pujara at point even though the replays suggested otherwise.

Kohli was disappointed, more so as he was unable to take advantage of three dropped catches — Bhushan Chauhan dropped him on 35 and 67 at covers and point, respectively off Dhruv, and Kotak couldn’t react to an edge at slip off Makhwana when he was on 38. Kohli’s second-wicket partnership with Dhawan was worth 112 runs.

Through the entire course, Dhawan played an uncharacteristic innings of 83 from 235 balls and he went further into the shell after his half-century as he approached his first three-figure mark of the season with just six boundaries. On Sunday, Dhawan’s progress to his century against the second new ball, and Delhi’s approach would relate an interesting opening session.

Saurashtra (1st innings) (overnight 234/9)

K Makwana not out (47b) 7

B Jadeja c Chopra b Awana (15) 5

Extras (b 10, lb 3, w 2, nb 7) 22

Total (all out; 87.3 overs) 241

FoW: 1-28 (Pathak), 2-41 (Kotak), 3-73 (Pujara), 4-154 (Chauhan), 5-177 (R Jadeja), 6-178 (Shah), 7-208 (Dhruv), 8-226 (Jogiyani), 9-233 (Jobanputra)

Bowling: S Narhwal 21-6-50-2, P Sangwan 13-2-44-0, P Awana 20.3-2-60-5, R Bhatia 7-1-21-0, C Nanda 21-7-44-1, Y Nagar 5-0-9-1

Delhi (1st innings)

Aakash Chopra c S Kotak b R Dhruve (132b, 5X4) 58

Shikhar Dhawan batting (235b, 6X4) 83

Virat Kohli run out (124b, 7X4, 1X6) 69

Mithun Manhas batting (13b) 3

Extras (lb-2) 2

Total (2 wickets, 84 overs) 215

FoW: 1-96 (Chopra), 2-208 (Kohli)

Bowling: S Jobanputra 18-1-54-0, B Jadeja 16-5-31-0, K Makwana 21-7-25-0, R Jadeja 9-1-25-0, R Dhruv 20-2-78-1