Rlys concede lead

Railways, overnight a promising 108 for two in reply to MP8217;s first innings total of 266, failed to consolidate and were dismissed for 226, about 30 minutes before tea.

Some overcautious approach by the home batsmen was the real cause for the team not able to overtake MP8217;s first innings score. None of the Railway batsmen could cross the 50-run mark. Sanjay Bangar, overnight on 46, added only two more runs before edging medium-pacer Harvinder Sodhi to Abbas Ali at the slips. His 48 came in three-and-a-half hours 183b, 4215;4, 1215;6.

Only skipper Prahlad Rawat 47: 149m, 114b, 5215;4 contributed anything substantial among the others as the last eight wickets fell for the addition of only 113 runs.

For MP, Sodhi 2 for 26, left-arm spinner Sunil Lahore 2 for 42, off-spinner Rajesh Chauhan 2 for 64 and leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani 2 for 71 shared the spoils.

In MP8217;s second essay, opener Harvinder Sodhi 24 batting and Prashant Dwivedi 13 batting were crawling after the dismissals of opener J P Yadav 2 and skipper Chandrakant Pandit 1.

Brief Scores: MP: 266 J P Yadav 46, A Khurasia 48, P Dwivedi 46, R Chauhan 36, S Lahore n.o 45, K Parida 4/65, M Kartik 4/54 and 51 for 2. Railways: 226 Satyendra Yadav 28, Sanjay Bangar 48, Prahlad Rawat 47, Zakaria Zufri 21, H Sodhi 2 for 26, Lahore 2 for 42, Rajesh Chauhan 2 for 64, N Hirwani 2 for 71, Bundela 1-15.