On day two of round nine of the Ranji Trophy, it was Sreevats Goswami’s monumental unbeaten double hundred (225 not out) for Bengal move to a commanding position against Madhya Pradesh in Delhi.

Bengal have been let down by their batsmen quite a few times this season. Even in Delhi, the middle order failed to chip in and batting talisman Sudip Chatterjee had a rare failure. In came Goswami at No. 6 and put the Madhya Pradesh bowlers to the sword.

From 207/7, Goswami’s punishing unbeaten double ton propelled his side to 475/9 and Ashok Dinda struck late in the day to put Manoj Tiwari’s men in command.

Abhinav Mukund misses out on a hundred, again

The nervous nineties continue to haunt Tamil Nadu skipper Abhinav Mukund. This time he fell one short of a century.

Overall, the southpaw has been in excellent touch with the bat and has been in tremendous big scoring form this season.

Despite Priyank Panchal’s record-breaking feats on Wednesday, Gujarat couldn’t build on their advantage and folded out for 307.

Tamil Nadu, in reply, finished strongly at 154/2.

Mumbai struggle against Punjab

Defending champions Mumbai struggled to keep pace with Punjab who took their first innings total to 468. Mayank Sidhana scored 115, while skipper Gurkeerat Singh Mann made 93.

In reply, Mumbai began on the back foot after losing Shreyas Iyer and Armaan Jaffer with just eight runs on the board.

Mumbai trail Punjab by 460 runs with eight wickets in hand.

Kuldeep Yadav, Saurabh Kumar notch up maiden tons

Uttar Pradesh’s Kuldeep Yadav and Saurabh Kumar notched up their maiden first-class centuries to lead their side to 481 against Baroda.

The duo extended their overnight partnership to 192 runs. They however 12 runs short of UP’s record eighth-wicket stand held by Anand Shukla and Sagir Ahmed against Rajasthan in 1961-62.

Kuldeep made 117, while Saurabh scored 105 runs.

In reply, Baroda were 242 for five thanks to an unbeaten 120-run knock by Kedhar Devdhar.

Karnataka make Maharashtra sweat

Half-centuries by Pavan Deshpande and R Samarth handed Karnataka the upper hand against Maharashtra in Mohali. Resuming on 67 for 1, Karnataka took a commanding 150-run lead after posting 313 for 9 at stumps, to all but end Maharashtra’s bid for an outright win needed to qualify for the knockout stage.

Earlier, Maharashtra went back on their decision to deny Karnataka a replacement for Manish Pandey, who was called-up to the India Test squad as a replacement for the injured Ajinkya Rahane.

Karnataka were set to bat with just ten players after Maharashtra had opposed Karnataka’s bid to field a replacement for Pandey. However, on Thursday, skipper Swapnil Gugale gave Karnataka the consent to bring in pacer David Mathias in to the playing XI.

Brief scores

  • Haryana 231 & 186/4 (Nitin Saini 104; Bunti Roy 2/25) lead Tripura 178 (Smit Patel 102; Harshal Patel 5/27) by 239 runs.
  • Punjab 468 (Mayank Sidhana 115, Gurkeerat Singh Mann 93; Suryakumar Yadav 4/47, Shardul Thakur 2/44) lead Mumbai 8/2 (Armaan Jaffer 7; Kamal Passi 0/1) by 460 runs.
  • Uttar Pradesh 481 (Kuldeep Yadav 117, Saurabh Kumar 105; Sagar Manglaorkar 3/89) lead Baroda 242/5 (Kedar Devdhar 120 not out; Imtiaz Ahmed 3/58) by 239 runs.
  • Bengal 475/9 decl. (Sreevats Goswami 225 not out; Chandrakant Sakure 2/33) lead Madhya Pradesh 19/1 (Rajat Patidar 13 not out; Ashok Dinda 1/4) by 456 runs.
  • Gujarat 307 (Priyank Panchal 113; Baba Aparajith 2/29, T Natarajan 3/86) lead Tamil Nadu 154/2 (Abhinav Mukund 99; Rush Kalaria 2/34) by 153 runs.
  • Rajasthan 140 (Manender Singh 27; Aditya Sarwate 3/22, Shrikant Wagh 2/23) & 10/0 lead Vidarbha 116 (Siddesh Wath 50; Tanveer-Ul-Haq 6/21) by 34 runs.
  • Andhra 190 (Pranith Manyala 63, Ashwin Hebbar 52; Chama Milind 5/28, Ravi Kiran 4/33) lead Hyderabad 81/5 (B Anirudh 26; P Vijaykumar 2/18) by 109 runs.
  • Goa 380 (Darshan Misal 106; Akshay Chauhan 3/80) lead Himachal Pradesh 254/2 (Prashant Chopra 144 not out; Amulaya Panderaker 1/26) by 126 runs.
  • Chhattisgarh 370 (Amandeep Khare 106; Samiullah Beigh 5/94) lead Jammu & Kashmir 33/2 (Pranav Gupta 22; Pankaj Rao 1/17) by 337 runs.
  • Services 322 (Anshul Gupta 105; Athif Bin Ashraf 4/60) lead Kerala 31/1 (Bhavin Thakkar 12 not out) by 291 runs.
  • Saurashtra 92 & 234/5 (KM Parmar 141 not out; Nitish Rana 2/20) trail Delhi 237 (Rishabh Pant 40, Pradeep Sangwan 39 not out; Kushang Patel 5/72) by 89 runs.
  • Maharashtra 163 lead Karnataka 313/9 (Pavan Deshpande 70, Mir Kaunan Abbas 30 not out; Anupam Sanklecha 3/69) by 150 runs.