Maharashtra continued to impress in the Ranji Trophy and it was veteran pacer Anupam Sanklecha who starred with a stunning 14-wicket match haul against Vidarbha at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Maharashtra won by a massive margin of an innings and 3 runs.

Jharkhand also registered a win, hammering Saurashtra by an innings and 46 runs in Agartala. Saurashtra’s Prerak Mankad, waged a lone battle as batsmen around him fell like nine pins.

Railways were within touching distance of a win in Nagpur, needing only 23 runs to defeat Baroda with eight wickets in hand. Former champions Karnataka also had their match well under control, needing just four more Rajasthan wickets in Vizianagaram. During the Kerala-Goa encounter in Mumbai, Rohan Prem became Kerala’s all-time highest run-scorer, going past Sunil Oasis’s record.

KL Rahul, Vinay Kumar reign supreme

KL Rahul scored a solid century as he came back from injury and subsequently earned a recall to the Indian camp for the second Test against England midway through the day. Karnataka declared at 298/6, setting Rajasthan a humongous target of 525. Skipper Vinay Kumar was in top form yet again, picking up three wickets. Karnataka were only four wickets shy of registering yet another win.

Anupam Sanklecha’s magnificent 14-wicket haul

Anupam Sanklecha is creating waves late in his career and the Maharashtra medium pacer was unstoppable here, picking up a 14-wicket match haul to help his side crush Vidarbha by an innings and three runs. Sanklecha’s heroics on day one which involved bundling Faiz Fazal’s men out for a paltry score of 59, set the tone for an emphatic Maharashtra win. Shrikant Wagh scored a fighting half-century but many of the batsmen had no answer to the 34-year-old Sanklecha.

Jharkhand blank Saurashtra

Ishank Jaggi’s 173 had given Jharkhand a whopping 190-run first innings lead and a tame batting collapse by Saurashtra ended proceedings on day three. Given Saurashtra’s superior experience, their performance was abysmal, and Prerak Mankad’s lone fight was not enough to stop his side from crashing to an innings and 46-run defeat.

Brief scores:

Mumbai 233 (Suryakumar Yadav 99; Kuldeep Yadav 4/46) & 286 (Suryakumar Yadav 90; Saurabh Kumar 3/48) lead Uttar Pradesh 225 (Rinku Singh 70; Tushar Deshpande 3/66, Abhishek Nayar 2/19) & 43/1 (Shivam Chaudhary 28 not out; Shardul Thakur 1/16) by 252 runs

Baroda 183 (Dhiren Mistry 50; Avinash Yadav 5/55) & 239 (Deepak Hooda 98; Avinash Yadav 3/50) trail Railways 310 (Saurabh Wakaskar 104, Atit Sheth 4/54) & 90/2 (Saurabh Wakaskar 45; Swapnil Singh 2/26) by 23 runs

Gujarat 302 (Manpreet Juneja 79; Chandrachant Sakure 4/65) & 228/2 (Samit Gohel 93 not out, Parthiv Patel 80 not out; Ishwar Pandey 2/49) lead Madhya Pradesh 252 (Rajat Patidar 71; Rush Kalaria 4/72) by 278 runs

Bengal 337 (Sudip Chaterjee 100; K Vignesh 4/70) trail Tamil Nadu 348/9 (Dinesh Karthik 80; Sayan Ghosh 4/121) by 11 runs

Saurashtra 277 (Prerak Mankad 96; Ashish Kumar 4/52) & 144 (Prerak Mankad 40 not out; Samar Quadri 4/46) lost to Jharkhand 467 (Ishank Jaggi 173; Kushang Patel 5/95) by an innings and 46 runs

Assam 310 (Kunal Saikia 135; Basant Mohanty 3/18) trail Odisha 459/7 (Govinda Poddar 225; Arup Das 3/60) by 158 runs

Vidarbha 59 (Shalabh Srivastava 19; Anupam Sanklecha 7/25) & 270 (Sanjay Ramaswamy 67, Shrikant Wagh 69 not out; Anupam Sanklecha 7/69) lost to Maharashtra 332 (Naushad Shaikh 127; Lalit Yadav 5/81) by an innings and 3 runs

Karnataka 374 (Mayank Agarwal 81, KL Rahul 76; Tanveer-ul-Haq 5/82) & 298/6 declared (KL Rahul 106; Rajesh Bishnoi 4/87) lead Rajasthan 148 (Siddharth Dobal 47; Vinay Kumar 4/28) & 118/6 (SF Khan 39; Vinay Kumar 3/45) by 407 runs

Hyderabad 580/9 (Bavanaka Sandeep 203 not out; Raushan Raj 5/73) lead Services 360/9 (Shamsher Yadav 104; Ravi Kiran 3/68) by 220 runs

Kerala 342 (Rohan Prem 130; Rituraj Rajeev Singh 7/42) & 154/4 (Rohan Prem 60 not out; Saurabh Bandekar 3/42) lead Goa 286 (Shadab Jakati 85; Vinod Kumar 4/68) by 210 runs

Haryana 502 (Rajat Paliwal 194; Parvez Rasool 3/77) lead Jammu & Kashmir 262 (Pranav Gupta 94; Sanjay Pahal 4/66) & 38/0 (Umar Nazir Ahmed Mir 19 not out) by 202 runs

Tripura 171 (Bunty Roy 34; P Vijaykumar 4/56) & 165/3 (Yashpal Singh 46 not; KV Sasikanth 2/41) trail Andhra 524/6 (Hanuma Vihari 233 not out; Gurinder Singh 4/166) by 188 runs

Chhatisgarh 238 (Amandeep Khare 85; Bipul Sharma 3/52) & 175/4 (Abhimanyu Chauhan 69 not out; Akashay Chauhan 1/15) lead Himachal Pradesh 314 (Bipul Sharma 86; Sumit Ruikar 7/112) by 99 runs