Ranji Trophy Quarter-Finals, Day 3 Round-up: Shreyas Gopal shines for Karnataka, Delhi inch closer to semi-finals
Shreyas Gopal ton strengthens Karnataka's position, Suryakumar Yadav delays inevitable
Shreyas Gopal notched up his career-best score to all but seal Mumbai's fate in the Ranji Trophy. Continuing from his overnight score of 80, Gopal added reached his century off 200 balls before adding a further fifty runs to his tally. Forming partnerships of 73 and 92 with K Gowtham and Sreenath Aravind respectively, Gopal took Karnataka to a formidable total of 570. With a lead of just under 400, Karnataka had all the license to go for the kill and started strongly, dismissing Prithvi Shaw and Jay Bista early.
Mumbai ended the day at 120/3 with Suryakumar Yadav (55*) and Akash Parkar (3*) at the crease.
Brief scores: Mumbai 173 (Kulkarni 75, Vinay Kumar 6/34) and 120/3 (Yadav 55*, K Gowtham 2/30) trail Karnataka 570 (Gopal 150, Gautam 79, Agarwal 78, Dubey 5/98) by 277 runs.
Samson, Baby fail; Gurbani fifer puts Vidarbha in control
Despite almost an entire day being washed out, the game between Kerala and Vidarbha is racing to a finish. Kerala, commencing from their overnight score of 32/2, could manage only 144 more runs with N Gurbani the wrecker-in-chief for Vidarbha. While Sanju Samson (32) and Sachin Baby (29) did resist to an extent, the former's dismissal triggered a collapse with Kerala ending their innings 70 runs short.
With a healthy lead on the board, Faiz Fazal put the Kerala bowling to the sword, notching up a quick-fire half-century to put his side in firm control of the quarter-final fixture.
Brief scores: Vidarbha 246 (Wadkar 53, Akshay 5/66) and 77/1 (Fazal 51*) lead Kerala 176 (Jalaj Ssxena 40, Gurbani 5/38 ) by 77 runs.
Middle-order contributions help Delhi secure first-innings lead
Trailing by 158 at the start of the third day with eight wickets in hand, Delhi had a first-innings lead well in their sights. Despite Kunal Chandela being sent back to the hut early, solid showings from Nitish Rana (43), Rishabh Pant (49) and Himmat Singh (71) ensured the hosts finished with 405 runs to their name, thereby gaining a lead of 67. Mihir Hirwani was the pick of the bowlers, finishing with a fifer.
In reply, Madhya Pradesh started shakily, both openers being dismissed early. Shubham Sharma steadied the ship to an extent, but his side still trail by 20 runs.
Brief scores: Madhya Pradesh 338 (Bhatia 107, Dane 59, Manan Sharma 4/46) and 47/2 (Sharma 25*) trail Delhi 405 (Chandela 81, Shorey 78, Singh 71, Hirwani 5/89) by 20 runs.
Gujarat's fairytale run set to come to an end
Defending Ranji Trophy champions Gujarat find themselves heading towards the exit after conceding a 130-run lead in the first innings. Rujul Bhatt and Piyush Chawla struck a few boundaries as they attempted to eat into the deficit, but they ultimately folded for 224 in reply to Bengal's 354.
To make matters worse, Abhimanyu Easwaran continued from where he had left off in the first innings, plodding his way to 93 in the company of Writtick Chatterjee. Easwaran had already scored a century in Bengal's first innings and needs just seven more runs to make it twin tons.
Brief scores: Bengal 354 (Easwaran 129, Majumdar 94, Chaudhary 5/87) and 177/1 (Easwaran 93*) lead Gujarat 224 (Merai 67, Patel 47, Dinda 3/48) by 307 runs.