Tamil Nadu well-placed
against Mumbai

Former champions Tamil Nadu were comfortably placed, having made 265 for eight at close on the third day of their Ranji Trophy pre-quarter-final against Mumbai in Chennai on Friday.

Overnight 31 for one, the hosts' opening batsman S Sriram played an anchor role, making a fine 61 (5x4). Useful knocks by Madanagopal (45) and left-handed Sharath 50 (7x4) saw Tamil Nadu safely placed with two more days to go.

S Sharath was looking strong on 50 and T Kumaran was giving him company on six when stumps were drawn for the day.

Mumbai, who had taken a slender four-run first innings lead, are left with the option of overhauling the Tamil Nadu total, who have two more wickets in hand, or play out a draw.

Mumbai's Ramesh Powar (2 for 85), Rajesh Pawar (2 for 44) and Sairaj Bahatule (2 for 60) were the successful bowlers.

Tamil Nadu had managed 182 in their first innings but did well to restrict Mumbai to 186 in their first essay.

Punjab defeat Assam by 10 wickets

Riding on a five-wicket haul by Harish Puri, hosts Punjab registered a comprehensive 10-wicket victory over Assam on the third day of their Ranji trophy pre-quarter-final at Mohali on Friday.

Trailing by 187 runs, Assam resumed at the overnight score of 53 for two and were all out for 200 in their second innings, setting Punjab a target of 14 runs.

The opening pair of Ravneet Rickey (7) and Munish Sharma (8) scored the required runs in 2.5 overs.

Earlier, overnight Assam batsman Parag Dass (40) was out without adding any run to his score. The other not out overnight batsman Zakaria Zuffri (40) was the next to go back to the pavilion when the board read 115.

Gautam Dutta (32), Sumit Ranjan Dass (31) and Sukhvinder Singh (19) were the main scorers for Assam.

Harish Puri impressed the most among the bowlers as he finished with five wickets for 66 runs. Ishan Malhotra (2 for 94), Kailash (2 for 24) and Navdeep (1 for 13) were the other wicket takers.

Punjab had scored 357 in their first innings in reply to Assam's 170.

Yadav wrecks HP with a 5-wicket haul

Hyderabad youngster Shivaji Yadav (5 for 74) spun a magic web to reduce Himachal Pradesh to 175 for 8 in their second innings after the hosts took a commanding 211-run first innings lead on the third day of the five-day Ranji Trophy pre-quarter-final at the Gymkhana grounds in Hyderabad on Friday.

Resuming at 288 for 4, the hosts were all out for 403, with Anirudh Singh (37) and Arjun Yadav (39) scoring the bulk of runs, which gave them a massive 211-run lead.

Shakti Singh and Sandeep Sharma claimed four wickets each for Himachal Pradesh.

The visitors, who scored 192 in the first innings, started the second essay with a deficit of 211 runs. The opening pair of Sandeep Sarma (50) and Ravikant Sharma (27) made a confident start, adding 78 runs for first wicket.

But Shivji Yadav struck with his flighted deliveries and spun the top order back to the pavilion and HP were reduced to 109 for four wickets at one stage.

Nischal Gour, who missed his century by a whisker in the first innings, remains the sole ray of hope. He is unbeaten on 24 along with Vishal Bhatia (0) and the visitors have to wipe out a deficit of 36 runs with two wickets in hand to make Hyderabad bat again.

Delhi crawl to 262 for three

Even a masterly hundred by Gautam Gambhir failed to inspire Delhi as they continued with save- the-match tactics against Railways on the third day of the four-day Ranji Trophy pre-quarter-final in Delhi on Friday.

In reply to Railways' first innings score of 497, Delhi resumed at their overnight score of 61 for no loss and crawled to 262 for the loss of three wickets at stumps.

Delhi's batsmen were made to toil for runs by the Railways bowlers, who operated a tight line throughout the day.

The Railways new ball bowlers put Delhi's opening pair of Gambhir and Akash Chopra under tremendous pressure till Chopra decided to break the shackles and hit Kartik for two boundaries in his 10th over.

Taking a cue from Chopra, Gambhir also began playing his shots as he hit a wayward Tejinder Pal Singh for three successive boundaries in his second over -- the first a delicate late cut and the other two, rasping cuts through the covers.

Railways skipper, Abhay Sharma introduced Parida into the attack and the move immediately fetched results as he clean bowled Chopra for 62, but only after the batsman had shared a valuable 154-run opening partnership with Gambhir.

The diminutive Gambhir cruised to his third century of the season -- which came from 210 balls and included six hits to the fence.

Soon after tea, Delhi lost two quick wickets -- those of Sohail Rauf (18), who was trapped plumb in front by Kartik and Mithun Manhas (5), yorked by J P Yadav.

At stumps, Pradip Chawla (12 not out), who hit Parida for two consecutive fours, was giving company to Gambhir, who reamined unbeaten on 142.

Andhra still not out of the woods

Nightwatchman M D Faiq played an innings of his lifetime for Andhra, who face a daunting first innings Gujarat score of 499, to help his team put up 252 for six on the third day of the Ranji Trophy pre-quarter-final in Ahmedabad on Friday.

Unbeaten on 10 at close on Thursday, Faiq made an invaluable 71 runs and was involved in two important partnerships of 76, first with overnight not out batsman G N Srinivas (34), and then of 68 with Venugopal Rao (37).

Faiq's gritty 71 was studded with 12 hits to the fence.

When stumps were drawn for the day, Andhra were 252 for six in exactly 100 overs.

The two not out batsmen were captain M S K Prasad on 33 and R V Ch Prasad on 29, both putting up a partnership of 63 runs.

The visiting team made 206 runs in the 90 overs bowled today.

Andhra still need 47 runs to save the follow-on with four wickets remaining. However, the team has not lost hope yet, with captain M S K Prasad and RV Ch Prasad looking good and K Shahbuddin still to come.

For the host team, left arm spinner Kalpesh Patel, who did the bulk of bowling, was the wrecker-in-chief. He took all the four wickets to fall today and had impressive figures of 25-6-48-5. Kalpesh had taken one wicket yesterday and the other Andhra wicket to fall overnight was grabbed by medium-pacer Shyamal Bhatt.

Debang's ton helps Bengal take lead

A fine century by Debang Gandhi (146), besides useful knocks by S Das (99 not out) and Rohan Gavaskar (46), propelled Bengal to a commanding position against Rajasthan on day three of the Ranji Trophy pre-quarter final in Jaipur on Thursday.

At stumps, Bengal were 409 for 5 and sitting pretty with a lead of 88 runs, with five wickets in hand and two days of the match still remaining.

S Das was just one short of his hundred. Sanjib Sanyal was giving him company on 12.

Replying to Rajasthan's first innings total of 321, Bengal resumed their first innings at the overnight score of 122 for two, with Debang Gandhi (40) and Rohan Gavaskar (5) at the crease.

They both thwarted the Rajasthan bowlers and added 108 for the third wicket. Later Gandhi was associated in another fruitful partnership of 106 runs for the fourth wicket which laid the foundation of a big score for the visitors.

Gandhi reached his 50 in (183 min, 125 balls) and went on to complete a fine hundred. But his patient and impressive innings came to an end at 146 (263 b, 397 m, 18x4, 6x2) when he was caught by Kuldeep Singh off Lokesh Jain.

For Rajasthan, Jain was the most successful bowler, bagging 3 for 76.

Mail Cricket Editor