A round up of the fourth and final day's action of the Ranji Trophy Super League matches on Wednesday.
Ranji Trophy round-up: Day III
Gritty Powar helps Mumbai avoid defeat
A defiant Ramesh Powar helped Mumbai avoid a humiliating innings defeat and draw their match against Saurashtra at Rajkot.
Powar made an unbeaten 23 but importantly spent close to three and half hours at the crease as Mumbai, who were at one stage 116 for 6, were staring at defeat and needed a pair to stay at the wicket.
Earlier, Mumbai in their second essay after following on, had a shaky start losing four quick wickets, in the morning session, with just 45 runs on the board.
Skipper Wasim Jaffer was the first batsman to be dismissed in the morning when he offered an easy catch to wicket keeper Sagar Jogiyani off Balkrishna Jadeja.
Ajinky Rahane (04) and Amol Mazumdar (14) too failed to click and were sent back by Balkrishna and Ravindra.
Meanwhile, Sahil Kukreja, who was playing watchfully, was dismissed for 23.
However, Hiken Shah (32) and Sairaj Bahutule (35) created some hope of a fightback by adding 44 runs for the fifth wicket before Shah was caught in front of the wicket by Makwana.
Powar then joined Bahutule to frustrate the hosts bowler's as he took 80 balls to open his account and remained unbeaten on 23 spending 206 minutes at the crease facing 171 bals with three fours alongwith first inning top scorer Usman Malvi (03).
When the match ended after the completion of the 15th mandatory over, Mumbai were 157 for the loss of seven wickets off 93 overs.
For Saurashtra, debutant Balkrishna Jadeja was again the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3-23 while off-spinner Kamlesh Makwana took two wickets conceding 46 runs.
Saurashtra secured three points on the basis of their first innings lead while Mumbai pocketed one point.
Brief scores: Saurashtra 643 for 4 decl drew Mumbai 214 and 157 for seven (Sairaj Bahutule 35, Hiken Shah 32, Ramesh Powar 23 not out, Balkrishna Jadeja three for 23).
Gujarat-Delhi match ends in a draw
Gujarat bagged three points on the basis of their first innings lead as their Group A match against Delhi ended in a draw at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in Valsad.
The hosts were 259 for six in 104 overs in their second innings when the match ended. Delhi got one point.
Gujarat captain Parthiv Patel hit 169-ball 71, while P K Panchal and N K Patel contributed 48 and 45 runs respectively.
For the visitors, S Narwal and C Nanda bagged two wickets each while P Awana took one.
Gujarat had scored 350 runs in the first essay, with B D Thaker hitting a splendid 151, while Patel scored 55. In reply, Delhi had made 314 runs.
For Delhi, Narwal and P Awana bagged four wickets each in the match, while P Sangwan and Nanda took three wickets apiece.
Brief scores: Gujarat 350 and 259 for six (Parthiv Patel 71) vs Delhi 314 (Yogesh Nagar 79, Gaurav Chabra 63, Sumit Narwal 48, Mohnish Parmar four for 104, Siddharth Trivedi three for 52).
UP beats Maharashtra by eight wickets
Hosts Uttar Pradesh registered their maiden outright win in this domestic season, crushing Maharashtra by eight wickets on the final day of their four-day Group 'B' Super League match at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur.
Gaining five points from the win, UP managed to keep hopes alive for a berth in the knock out stage this season with 11 points from four outings so far.
Needing 137 for victory, UP scored the required runs losing only two wickets.
Mantaining his good form this season, young Tanmay Srivastava, who had hit a brilliant 154 against Andhra Pradesh, scored a fluent unbeaten 65 off 95 balls while Parvinder hit second half century of the match in the process.
Resuming on their overnight score of 199 for seven, Maharashtra's second innings folded up at 230 leaving UP to score 137 runs in the remaining 75 overs.
UP skipper Mohammad Kaif was an elated person after the win saying ''The outright win came at the very right moment. In fact, we needed an outright win at this stage.''
Attributing the win to a perfect team effort, Kaif had a special word of appreciation for opener Shivakant, who scored a brilliant century in the first innings.
Uttar Pradesh, with 11 points, will now take on Railways (9 pts) in their fifth round match at Karnail Singh Stadium in New Delhi from November 29, while Maharashtra meet Baroda at Vadodara also on the same day.
Brief scores: Maharashtra 221 and 230 (Kedar Jadhav 65, Deepak Silampur 56) vs UP 315 and 140 for two.
Orissa defeat Punjab by nine wickets
Orissa registered their first victory this season, defeating Punjab by nine wickets on the final day of their Super League encounter at the Railway Stadium in Bhubaneswar.
Punjab's Ankur Kakkar, who resumed with 77 this morning, completed his century before being dismissed on 117, which he adorned with 15 boundaries. His 319-minute-long fighting ton helped the visitors to avert innings defeat.
Punjab, starting with an overnight 256 for 5, were bundled out for 378, leaving Orissa to make 87 to win.
Besides Ankur, Uday Kaul scored 71 runs before being sent back by medium pacer Basant Mohanty.
The visitors failed to give any trouble to the hosts, as Orissa collected the required runs with nine wickets in their hand. Skipper Shiv Sundar Das led the way with an unbeaten 38 and also reached his personal 10,000-run mark in first class cricket.
Debasis Mohanty put up commendable effort to claim five wickets for 72 runs, while young paceman Basant Mohanty, who had triggered Punjab's collapse in the first innings with his seven-wicket haul, bagged two wickets for 82 runs.
Left arm spinner Dhiraj Singh managed three for 108 runs.
After the win, Orissa will have nine points from four matches, while Punjab has seven points from equal number of ties.
Brief scores: Punjab 60 and 378 (Ankur Kakkar 117, Uday Kaul 71, Debasis Mohanty five for 72) lost to Orissa 352 and 87 for 1 (SS Das 38 not out).
Karnataka scores 10-wicket win over Baroda
Spinner Sunil Joshi did the star turn bagging six wickets as Karnataka scored an emphatic 10-wicket victory over Baroda in their Elite Group B match in Bangalore.
Karnataka, who skittled out Baroda for 169 in their first innings, restricted them to 285 in the second and knocked off the 60 runs required for outright win without losing any wicket.
Joshi bagged six wickets for 48 runs off 32.2 overs. R Vinay Kumar took two wickets.
Karnataka scored the required runs in 6.2 overs with openers K B Pawan (15) and skipper Robin Uthappa (44) completing the task in just 33 minutes in the second innings.
Karnataka scored 395 in the first innings.
This is the second win for Karnataka this season after they defeated Andhra.
Karnataka collected six points, including a bonus and took their tally to 13 from four outings. Baroda remained at two points.
Brief scores: Baroda 169 and 285 lost to Karnataka 395 all out and 60 for no loss.
Railways spank Andhra by seven wickets
Railways needed just 10 overs and less than an hour on the fourth and final day to notch up a comprehensive seven-wicket victory over Andhra Pradesh in their Group B match in New Delhi.
Needing just 37 runs to reach the winning target of 90, Railways lost one wicket -- that of Milind Tamhane (44) -- to bag five points from the tie.
Tamhane added another 27 runs to his overnight 17 before he was dismissed by M Suresh just three runs shy of victory.
He hit five fours in his 88-ball knock.
Sanjib Sanyal then smashed the required three runs to complete the formalities and end the misery of Andhra Pradesh.
Harshan Rawle, who was on four overnight, remained unbeaten on 33. He took 88 balls and hit five fours.
Parida was the most successful bowler for Railways with match haul of six wickets for 58 runs. Karan Sharma grabbed five wickets while former India player Murli Kartik got four in the match.
Brief scores: Andhra 208 and 108 (Anureet Singh four for 29, Kulamani Parida four for 10) vs Railways 227 (Sanjib Sanyal 70) and 90 for three.
