Former Ranji champions Railways were placed at a comfortable 192 for one against Andhra on the second day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match at the Karnail Singh Stadium in New Delhi on Saturday.
Resuming the day at 235 for seven, the Andhra innings lasted less than nine overs.
After taking the remaining three Andhra wickets to bowl them out for 262 in the morning session, hosts Railways began solidly with a 116-run opening partnership between Amit Pagnis and Test allrounder Sanjay Bangar.
The arrival of Tejinder Pal Singh injected some vigour into an otherwise dull day, at the end of which the hosts were mere 70 runs away from gaining the first innings lead.
At close, Bangar was batting on 72 and Tejinder Pal on 52. Earlier the southpaw Pagnis made a well compiled 58.
The Railways batsmen batted well, though, at a sluggish pace.
The Andhra vice captain R V Prasad did not help his team's cause when he dropped Pagnis in the very first over off Syed Shahabuddin, with the batsman yet to open his account.
Prasad was also the culprit when he failed to hold on to a skier at long on from Bangar, on 55 then, off Watekar in the post-tea session.
Shankararao's first nine overs of left arm spin were all maidens, indicating Railway's intention of consolidating their overall position in the match.
Andhra got their breakthrough when, first ball after tea, a lapse in concentration saw Pagnis spooning Kalyanakrishna straight to Shankararao at short extra cover.
The left handed opener's 58 came off 163 balls in a little more than three hours, with the help of five fours.
But from 116 in 47 overs at tea, the scoring rate marginally improved to three an over in the final session, thanks to Tejinder Pal's bold shot making.
Watekar, alongwith Shahabuddin, is Andhra's key strike bowler and has modelled himself on Pakistani off spinner Saqlain Mushtaq. With a lengthy run up and springy delivery action, he had stifled Pagnis considerably but Singh, a left hander himself, tamed him with ease.
After Bangar top edged Watekar while trying to hook him on the on-side, and was lucky to be dropped by Prasad, Tejinder Pal repeatedly stepped out to the off spinner and drove him over the head.
Four hits to the fence, all in the 'V', stamped Singh's domination and captain M S K Prasad had to take Watekar off from the pavilion end.
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