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Jaymeet Patel completed a well-deserved century but it was keeper-batter Urvil Patel, who knocked the stuffing out of hosts Saurashtra with a superb 140, as Gujarat inched closer to the semi-finals, on Day 3 of their Ranji Trophy quarter-final, in Rajkot, on Monday.
Having dismissed Saurashtra for 216, Gujarat finished their first essay on a mammoth 511 -- a lead of 295, which has almost sealed the deal for Chintan Gaja's men.
While Manan Hingrajia's stodgy 83 off 219 balls laid the foundation, left-handed Jaymeet (103 off 171 balls) completed his ton and then Urvil (140 off 197 balls) took a seasoned seamer like Jaydev Unadkat (1/107 in 31 overs) to the task.
It is a rarity to find Unadkat being hit for 14 boundaries and two sixes in a single innings. Urvil in fact hit half a dozen of his 17 boundaries off the Saurashtra skipper, apart from also punishing the experienced Dharmendra Jadeja (5/120 in 37.1 overs) by clobbering him for a couple of sixes.
In all, Urvil hit four sixes, before he was dismissed stumped, attempting a fifth one off Dharmendra.
At stumps, Saurashtra were 33 for no loss, bringing the deficit down to 262, but setting a fourth-innings target worth defending would be an incredibly difficult job for them.
Unless Saurashtra score at least 450 runs on the fourth day and set a target in range of 220 for the visitors, there is no chance of a fightback for them.
Scoring runs at a brisk pace on a track that will get considerably slower with the passage of play is going to be difficult, and it will all depend on how Chirag Jani, Harvik Desai start the fourth day's play. Saurashtra's big hopes rests on how veteran Cheteshwar Pujara bats on the last two days. He had managed just 26 in the first innings.
During the last hour on Day 3, Saurashtra adopted a cautious approach to reach 33 in 16 overs.
Brief Scores:
Saurashtra 33/0 in 16 overs and 216 vs Gujarat 1st inns 511 in 159.1 overs (Jaymeet Patel 103, Urvil Patel 140; D Jadeja 5/120).