Baroda struggling to avoid follow-on

Baroda were struggling to avoid a follow-on at the close of the second day's play in their West Zone Ranji Trophy match against Mumbai on home turf on Friday.

They were 44 for the loss of four wickets in reply to Mumbai's first innings total of 553 when stumps were drawn for the day.

The hosts need 309 more runs to avoid the follow-on.

Nayan Mongia, with 12, and Atul Beadade, with seven, were at the crease when stumps were drawn.

Earlier, resuming at their overnight score of 372 for the loss of five wickets, Mumbai went on to pile 553 runs. Amol Muzmudar scored a fluent 133 but the highlight of Mumbai's innings was a century by Ramesh Powar, who came in to bat at number nine.

Medium pacer Rakesh Patel was the pick of Baroda's bowlers claiming five wickets conceding 154 runs.

Niraj Patel leads Gujarat fightback

Left-hander, one-down batsman Niraj Patel's unbeaten 89 enabled Gujarat to score 141 for three in their first innings in reply to Saurashtra's 434 all out, on the second day of the four-day West Zone Ranji Trophy league match at the Municipal Corporation grounds in Rajkot Friday.

Patel batted comfortably and was just 11 runs short of the coveted mark. His 89 from 120 deliveries had 16 fours and a six.

Earlier, Saurashtra resumed their first innings at the overnight score of 260 for three and folded at 434 shortly after lunch.

Firoz Bambhania smashed a maiden century. He and wicketkeeper Ruben Paul added 89 runs for the fifth wicket. Paul quickfired 74 runs with the aid of eight fours from 89 deliveries. Firoz made 109 runs that included 12 boundaries.

Brief scores:
Saurashtra (1st innings) 434 for all out in 140 overs (S Somsundar 119, P Bhatt 40, F Bambhania 109 and Ruben Paul 74. B Mehta 3 for 99, Kirat Damani 2 for 46 and H Mazmudar 2 for 62).

Gujarat (1st innings) 141 for 3 in 38 overs (N Modi 33, N Patel batting 89, Tejas Varsani batting 2. S Somsundar one for 15, R Dhruv 1 for 4; H Parsana 1 for 36).

Zuffri, Das steady Assam

A swashbuckling 69 by batsman-wicketkeeper Zakaria Zuffri and a painstaking 59 by opener Parag Das (59) helped Assam to 214 for the loss of seven wickets on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy match against Bengal at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta on Friday.

Nishant Bardoloi and Sukhbinder Singh were unbeaten with 3 each when the stumps were drawn for the day ten minutes before schedule due to bad light after 91.2 overs of play.

Winning the toss, Assam skipper Subhrajit Saikia opted to bat and initiated the innings with experienced Das, but the former returned early scoring 17 after being caught by Nikhil Haldipur off pacer Lakshmi Ratan Shukla. Das hit nine fours and two sixes to reach his 59.

The visitors while managing to score 114 for 2 at lunch, suffered a setback during the post tea session lsoing four wickets in quick succession for just eight runs to collapse from 201 for 4 to 209 for 7.

Former skipper Utpal Chatterjee and Surashish Lahiri claimed two wickets each, conceding 30 and 59 runs respectively, while medium pacer Sib Sankar Paul claimed two wickets for 44 runs.

Himachal Pradesh sitting pretty at 232-2

Powered by two century partnerships, Himachal Pradesh were comfortably placed at 232 for two at close of the opening day of their Ranji Trophy match against Haryana in Rohtak on Friday.

Electing to bat, Himachal openers Nishchal Gaur (45) and Sandeep Sharma put up a solid 100-run foundation and the top order sustained the momentum.

Gaur was the first to be dismissed after scoring 45 runs, when he snicked S Narwa to Keeper Ajay Ratra in the 31st over.

Opener Sandeep Sharma was the next to go with the score reading 119. He played a brilliant innings of 61 studded by nine fours and a six (of 86 balls) before he was caught of the bowling of Amit Mishra.

Rajeev Nayyar, who came to the crease at the fall of Gaur's wicket played cautiously taking quite some time to settle in.

Sangram Singh was batting on 71(7x4, 1x6) while Nayyer was on 47 when stumps were drawn for the day. Both of them have already added 119 runs for the third wicket.