2017-18 Ranji Trophy, round 7, day 2: Manish Pandey, Jay Bista and Siddesh Lad make merry
Punjab batsman Anmolpreet Singh and Karnataka's Manish Pandey starred on day two of the final round of Ranji Trophy league matches. While few teams have already sealed their spots in the quarters, others had to sweat it out to make it to the next round.
Anmolpreet's unbeaten 252 helped Punjab declare at 646/6 and the Harbhajan Singh-led side have Services on the mat, reducing them to 130/4.
Karnataka are on top against Railways, thanks to Mayank Agarwal's 173 and Pandey's century. This knock might also give Pandey the upper hand in his quest to replace Virat Kohli in the third Test against Sri Lanka if the Indian skipper opts for a rest.
Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Mumbai, along with Andhra, who are not playing in this round, are looking to seal their qualification from Group C. While Tamil Nadu's chances of qualifying look dim, MP and Mumbai are on the verge of registering outright wins.
Odisha need to score 233 runs to make MP bat again while Jay Bista's swashbuckling 123, along with Siddesh Lad's stroke-filled 123 helped Mumbai take a 226-run lead against Tripura.
Let us take a look at what happened on day two of the final round of matches:
Ranchi: Jharkhand 98/3 (Nazim Siddiqui 52*, Ishank Jaggi 27*, Chintan Gaja 2/19) trail Gujarat 411 (Rijul Bhatt 145*, Samit Gohil 64, Manpreet Juneja 67, Ashish Kumar 4/18) by 313 runs.
Kolkata: Goa 191/5 (Amogh Desai 53*, Keenan Vaz 40*) trail Bengal 379 (Shreevats Goswami 139, Anustup Majumdar 119, Lakshay Garg 4/89) by 188 runs.
Indore: Odsha 147 and 18/0 trail Madhya Pradesh 388 (Rajat Patidar 123, Devendra Bundela 61, Govinda Poddar 7/102) by 223 runs.
Mumbai: Mumbai 421/8 (Jay Bista 123, Siddesh Lad 123, Mura Singh 5/71) lead Tripura 195 by 226 runs.
Nagpur: Vidarbha 237/0 (Faiz Fazal 125*, SR Ramaswamy 104*) trail Himachal Pradesh 353 (Rishi Dhawan 71, AP Vashisht 69, RL Gurbani 6/113) by 116 runs.
Amritsar: Services 130/4 (Rahul Singh Gahlaut 44*, Siddarth Kaul 2/54, Manpreet Singh 2/25) trail Punjab 645/6 decl. (Anmolpreet Singh 252*, Shubman Gill 129) by 515 runs.
Baroda: Tamil Nadu 226/5 (Baba Aparajith 59*, Baba Indrajith 58) trail Baroda (Swapnil Singh 144, K Vignesh 3/52) by 83 runs.
Pune: Assam 279 and 101/3 (Rishav Das 35, Abhishek Thakuri 35) lead Maharashtra 253 (Rituraj Gaikwad 126,Rahul Singh 4/63) by 127 runs.
Hyderabad: Hyderabad 194/8 (Tanmay Agarwal 63, Kulwant Khejroliya 3/40) trail Delhi 415 (Himmat Singh 99, Lalit Yadav 62) by 221 runs.
Lahli: Kerala 203/3 (Jalaj Saxena 91, Roham Prem 79*) trail Haryana 208 by 5 runs.
Jaipur: Rajasthan 60/2 (CD Bist 31*, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 2/0) trail Saurashtra 534 (AA Barot 130, Jaydev Unadkat 88, Deepak Chahar 3/110) by 455 runs.
Delhi: Railways 241/4 (Mahesh Rawat 86*, Arindam Ghosh 70*, K Gowtham 2/42) trail Karnataka (Mayank Agarwal 173, Manish Pandey 108) by 193 runs.