Young medium pacer Praveen Kumar claimed eight wickets, the fifth-best in the history of Ranji Trophy finals, to help Uttar Pradesh take a 52-run lead before Delhi fought back on the third day of the five-day summit clash here on Friday.

Kumar utilised the second new ball to telling effect to send Delhi crashing from 232 for four to 290 all out, with overall figures of eight for 68, before UP plunged to 154 for six in the second innings on an action-packed day.

The 21-year-old Meerut-born Kumar's innings return was the fifth-best in the history of the national championship's finals.

Only fellow-UP left-arm spinner Rajinder Singh Hans (nine for 152 vs Delhi in 1977-78), Mumbai left-arm spinner Padmakar Shivalkar (eight for 16 against Tamil Nadu in 1972-73), Mumbai off-spinner (eight for 39 against Bengal in 1955-56) and Delhi left-arm spinner Maninder Singh (eight for 54 against Haryana in 1985-86) have returned figures better than those of Kumar.

Kumar's heroics came after overnight Delhi batsmen Akash Chopra (102, 319m, 17x4) and Rajat Bhatia (139 n.o., 323m, 18x4, 4x6) added 36 runs to their overnight 196 for four. Chopra fell leg before to start the procession after adding 196 runs in 235 minutes with Bhatia for the fifth wicket.

Kumar could not complete a hat-trick but sent back Narwal while Sudip Tyagi dimissed Nanda to leave Delhi at 247 for eight, 95 runs adrift of UP's first innings tally of 342.

Bhatia, 102 when Chopra fell, farmed the bowling well to add 43 runs with Sangwan and Bhandari for the ninth and tenth wickets to reduce the deficit.

But UP started poorly when first innings centurion Tanmay Srivastava was run out in the third over. Raina, dropped on 20 by Chopra in the slips off Sangwan, threw caution to the winds and started attacking. He put on 62 for the second wicket with opener Rohit Srivastava (18) before UP adjourned for tea at 123 for two. UP lost a spate of wickets soon after tea, including those of Raina and skipper Mohd Kaif before Bhuvanesh Kumar (19) and Amir Khan (4) stemmed the rot with an unbroken stand of 24.