Baroda, Himachal stare at wins in Ranji Trophy

New Delhi, Nov 29 (IANS) Baroda and Himachal Pradesh are closing in on convincing wins after the second day of the fifth round of Ranji Trophy Friday.

At Vadodara’s Moti Bagh Stadium, Madhya Pradesh need another 279 runs with five wickets in hand to deny hosts Baroda an outright win. Madhya Pradesh, who were skittled out for 60 in the first innings, are struggling at 58/5 in the second innings.

Madhya Pradesh batsmen failed to complement the excellent show by off spinner Jalaj Saxena, who picked up 7/82 to restrict Baroda to 244 in the second innings. Saxena had also picked up six wickets in the first innings.

It was a fine unbeaten 104 by Yusuf Pathan, who picked up 4/17 on the first day, that saved Baroda the blushes. Baroda had scored 152 in the first innings.

In Dharamsala’s picturesque Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium, Assam were done in by winter chill and need to score 258 runs with four wickets in hand. At stumps, Assam, who were bowled out for 81 in the first innings, were left struggling at 97/6 in the second innings.

Himachal, who resumed the day at 199/4, declared their first innings at 463/9. Nikhil Gangta fell one short of what would have been a fine hundred while Bipul Sharma remained unbeaten on 102.

Brief scores:

Group A:

Mumbai 261 and 179/1 (Tare 110 not out, Rahane 62 not out) vs Vidarbha 113 (Zaheer 2/30, Shardul Thakur 3/40)

Haryana 163 and 117/5 vs Punjab 184

Gujarat 168/2 (Samit Gohel 66 not out, Parthiv Patel 75 not out) vs Jharkhand 289 (Manoj Tiwary 91, Bumrah 5/79)

Karnataka 288/4 (Rahul 67, Pandey 108 not out) v Odisha 226 (Mallick 98, Mithun 6/52)

Group B:

Tamil Nadu 565/8 dec (Abhinav Mukund 240, Dinesh Karthik 133) vs Saurashtra 12/1

Bengal 431 (Das 165, Lahiri 108) vs Services 39/0

Uttar Pradesh 226 and 46/2 vs Rajasthan 185 (Saraf 56, Mishra 7/59)

Baroda 152 and 244 (Yusuf 104; Saxena 7/82) vs Madhya Pradesh 60 and 58/5

Group C:

Andhra 317 (Prashanth Kumar 86) vs Maharashtra 196/3 (Zol 73, Jadhav 97 not out)

Himachal Pradesh 463/9 vs Assam 81 and 97/6

Jammu and Kashmir 377 vs Kerala 184/2 (Jagadeesh 84 not out)

Tripura 174 (Ali 60) vs Goa 252 and 8/0