Kukreja hits 89 vs Delhi

“It’s a fact that I cannot deny, none of us can. As much as we have a task on hand, there’s hope that a return to the national team happens. You try to give your best,” says Chopra.

“We were looking for much more than 251 (Delhi’s first innings total). Gautam was batting excellently, so anything was possible. But there are two days left,” he says, satisfied with what the team has earned, at least an 85-run first innings lead.

For Mumbai, its uphill, merely 69 runs ahead now. “We can’t say how much can be enough on a good batting track,” says Chopra. Mumbai are currently 150/2, captain Amol Muzumdar and Sahil Kukreja (who has batted extremely well for his 89 until now) at the crease.

Brief scores: Mumbai 166 and 154/2 (S Kukreja batting 89) v Delhi 251 (G Gambhir 89, R Bhatia 49; Salvi 3/44) .

Ranji Round-up:

• Jaipur: Saurashtra tightened the screws on Rajasthan, reducing them to 155/6. Saurashtra resumed on 220/5 and reached 307 with J N Shah scoring 71 on Day Two.

Brief scores: Saurashtra 307 (S Kotak 58, J Shah 71, R Dhruv n.o 46; Pankaj 4/91, Md Aslam 3/54) v Rajasthan 155/6 (G Khoda 44; R Dhruv 2/35)

Other scores:

• Cuttack: Andhra 179 and 67/2 v Orissa 140 (Watekar 5/40, G Rao 2/15)

• Chennai: Tamil Nadu 421 (Badrinath 143, Ramkumar 65) v Karnataka 144/6 (Shinde 45; Ramkumar 3/32)

• Hyderabad: Hyderabad 261 (Pai 62; Irfan 4/71, Sumit 3/39) v Baroda 191/2 (Williams 91batting, Bilakhia 68)

• Dharamsala: Maharashtra 310 (Rao 112, Agarkar 46) v Himachal Pradesh 83 (Bahutule 5/29, Sayyed 2/7) and 41/2 (Fallah 2/18)

Plate division:

Silchar: Assam 198 & 152 (S Suresh 45; T Yohanna 4/46) v Kerala 85 (S Suresh 4/23, D Goswami 4/24) & 11/0

Margao: Madhya Pradesh 475 (Murtaza Ali 88, A Jadhav 93 n.o; S Bandekar 6/144) v Goa 145/3 (S Asnodkar 64 batting)

Nagpur: Vidarbha 315 (T Chanda 4/68, V jain 3/51) v Tripura 80/5 (R Saha 22 batting; M Acharya 3/19)