Wickets fell like nine pins in the Himachal Pradesh-Hyderabad encounter in Guwahati on Friday. After getting shot out for an embarrassing 36, Himachal skipper Rishi Dhawan's six-for helped his team fight back in the game on what is a minefield of a pitch.

Deepak Hooda took off from he left against Punjab and finished at an unbeaten 290, unfortunately running out of batting partners just when he was on the cusp of bringing up the third triple-century this season. Delhi skipper Gautam Gambhir's fighting hundred goes to show that the veteran batsman still has plenty left in his tank.

Another veteran, Robin Uthappa, also showed his class as he, along with Karun Nair, amassed an unbeaten 219 stand for the third wicket against Assam.

Bengal snatch advantage against Railways

After doing so well to restrict Bengal to 205 in the first innings, Railways' inept display with the bat handed the advantage right back to Bengal, who were below-par in the second innings too. However, a lead of 308 is huge under the current circumstances. Ashok Dinda was terrific with the ball and took a five-for. He should be Manoj Tiwari's go-to man in the fourth innings too.

Uthappa, Nair's brilliant counter-punch

Assam's Amit Verma ended his innings at an unbeaten 166 when his team was bundled out. At 4/2, Karnataka were in a backs-to-the-wall situation but Robin Uthappa and Karun Nair built an excellent third-wicket stand, patiently knocking their runs. At the close of play, Karnataka were still 102 runs behind their opponents but have eight wickets in hand. Uthappa and Nair have cracked an unbeaten 219 for the third wicket.

Deepak Hooda rises in stature

Deepak Hooda started the day at an unbeaten 190 and was in no mood to hang around as he brought up boundaries at will against the Punjab bowlers. Barring medium-pacer Sandeep Sharma, Yuvraj Singh's bowlers let him down. Hooda was unfortunate to miss out a triple hundred but put Baroda in command of proceedings. However, Punjab looked good at the close of play with the elegant Manan Vohra unbeaten on 67.

Brief scores:

Himachal Pradesh 36 (Rishi Dhawan 9; Akash Bhandari 4/0) trail Hyderabad 99/7 (Balachander Anirudh 44 not out; Rishi Dhawan 6/35) by 63 runs.

Baroda 526/9 (Deepak Hooda 290 not out; Sandeep Sharma 4/101) lead Punjab 126/1 (Manan Vohra 67 not out; Sagar Mangalorkar 1/28) by 408 runs.

Tamil Nadu 547/7 (Kaushik Gandhi 157, N Jagadeesan 118 not out; Ashwin Das 3/111) vs Madhya Pradesh

Bengal 205 (Sudip Chatterjee 85; Anureet Singh 4/66) & 208/9 (Manoj Tiwary 48, Wriddhiman Saha 44; Karn Thakur 3/39) lead Railways 105 (Karn Sharma 40; Ashok Dinda 5/45) by 308 runs.

Gujarat 347 (Chirag Gandhi 87, Imtiaz Ahmad, 5/73) Lead Uttar Pradesh 147/4 (Samarth Singh 50; Hardik Patel 3/58) by 200 runs.

Orissa 237 (Subhranshu Senapathi 76; Varun Sood 3/23) trail Delhi 357/7 (Gautam Gambhir 147, Dhiraj Singh 3/61) by 114 runs.

Maharashtra 461 (Naushad Sheikh 143, Pankaj Singh 4/62) lead Rajasthan 76/2 (Manender Singh 31 not out; Mohsin Sayyed 1/19) by 385 runs.

Assam 325 (Amit Verma 166 not out; Sreenath Aravind 5/70) lead Karnataka 223/2 (Robin Uthappa 108 not out, Karun Nair 108 not out; Arup Das 1/27) by 102 runs.

Vidarbha 105 (Jitesh Sharma 21; Vikash Singh 4/24) & Faiz Fazal 48/0 (Faiz Fazal 29 not out) trail Jharkhand 362/8 decl. (Ishank Jaggi 112 not out; Rajneesh Gurbani 2/61) by 209 runs.

Andhra 253 (Prasanth Kumar 74; Yuzvendra Chahal 5/81) & 95/3 (Hanuma Vihari 47 not out; Mohit Sharma 2/10) lead Haryana 103 (Shubham Rohilla 27; D Siva Kumar 5/25) by 245 runs.

Tripura 283 (Rajat Dey 83; Shadab Jakati 4/67) lead Goa 220/8 (Swapnil Asnodkar 57; Gurinder Singh 3/40) by 63 runs.

Services 447 (Rahul Singh 182, Parvez Rasool 5/117) lead J&K 96/1 (Shubham Kjuria 34; Raj Bahadur 1/26) by 381 runs.