Left-handed Gautam Gambhir struck an unbeaten 233, his second double-century in two matches against the Railways, and shared a marathon 336-run stand in 444 minutes with vice-captain Mithun Manhas (158: 23x4, 444m, 261b) to help Delhi declare their first innings at 507-4 for a handsome 302-run lead in their Elite Group A Ranji Trophy match at the Kotla here today. SCOREBOARD Rlys (1st Innings): 205 Delhi (1st Innings): A Chopra lbw Santosh Saxena 28; G Gambhir not out 233; P Chawla c Jacob Martin b Harvinder Singh 1; M Manhas b Parida 158; V Dahiya c Khanolkar b Parida 39; Kuldeep Rawat not out 15; Extras (b-10,lb-13,w-8,nb-2): 33 Total (For 4 wkts decl): 507 Fall of wickets: 1-47, 2-49, 3-385, 4-488. Bowling: Harvinder Singh 25-7-79-1, Zakir Hussain 22-8-55-0, Santosh Saxena 20-2-82-1, K Parida 43-11-146-2, T P Singh 17-3-75-0, Yere Goud 8-0-32-0, Khanolkar 2-0-15-0. Railways (2nd Innings): S Khanolkar b Bhandari 11; A Pagnis batting 37; T P Singh batting 39; Extras (nb3): 3 Total (For 1 wkt): 90 Fall of wicket: 1-24. Bowling: Bhandari 6-2-20-1, Arun Singh 7-1-33-0, Kuldeep Rawat 5-1-14-0, Sarandeep Singh 8-4-9-0, Abhishek Sharma 3-1-11-0, R Sanghvi 3-2-3-0. At the end of the penultimate day, Railways had wiped off 90 of the deficit for the loss of Khanolkar. Left-handed Amit Pagnis (37) and Tejinder Pal Singh (39) had so far added 66 runs for the unbroken second wicket. Gambhir, a natural attacking player, initially curbed his strokes in the interest of the team. But once he reached his fourth hundred in Ranji Trophy, he went beserk, driving, cutting and pulling all the bowlers with disdain. In the pre-quarters against the same opposition at Karnail Singh Stadium last season, Gambhir had struck 214 which went in vain for Delhi. The Delhi youngster had also hit an impressive double hundred against the visiting Zimbabweans a couple of seasons ago. Gambhir also shared another 103-run stand with skipper Vijay Dahiya for the fourth wicket and the home team’s declaration came at tea. With Sarandeep bowling a tight line and troubling the batsmen on another truncated day (13 overs remained to be bowled), Delhi will look to the off-spinner on the final day to deal some vital blows early to clinch an outright win. RANJI TROPHY ROUND-UP AT MOHALI: Punjab bared their cards well today, controlling and pacing their second innings. Punjab could let Baroda go, contend with five points (on basis of first-innings lead) to Baroda’s three but their Plan A would ideally be: declare at their overnight 269 for 6, which actually reads 298 if you add the 29-run lead to it. So, 299 to win on the last day for Baroda should be a good contest if Punjab declare and Baroda go for it. Brief scores: Punjab: 220 and 269 for 6 (Ravneet Ricky 103, P Dharmani 59, R S Sodhi 42, Buch 5-66). Baroda: 191 AT JAMSHEDPUR: Bihar were struggling at 142-2 in reply to Jammu and Kashmir’s mammoth first innings total of 532-8 declared on the penultimate day of the match at Keenan Stadium. Ashwini Gupta reached his second double hundred in first-class cricket and remained unbeaten on 203 in J-K’s innings.Brief scores: J-K: 532-8 decl. Bihar: 142-2. AT GUWAHATI: Riding on a rollicking second wicket partnership of 208 between M Joglekar (103) and Kiran Pawar (111), Assam secured a vital 17-run lead over Orissa at the end of the third day of their Elite Group Ranji Trophy match today. It was sweet revenge for the home side as they were trounced in their last encounter by Orissa at the same venue when Assam were bowled out below 100 in both the innings.Brief scores: Orissa: 347. Assam: 360. AT KOLKATA: An unbeaten 77 by Nikhil Doru and inclement weather conditions virtually wiped out Bengal’s chances of an outright victory against Rajasthan at the Eden Gardens.Brief scores: Bengal: 413. Rajasthan: 200-3. AT HYDERABAD: Mumbai took a firm control against Hyderabad, reducing the home team to 110 for five wickets in their second innings after setting a victory target of 306 to the visitors.Brief scores: Mumbai: 98 and 337. Hyderabad: 130 and 110-5.
