JOIN USChesteshwar Pujara stroked his way to an unbeaten double century as Saurashtra brightened their chances of making the quarterfinals of the Ranji Trophy after setting Madhya Pradesh an improbable 411-run target for an outright win in their Group A match here on Monday.
Chasing the target, Madhya Pradesh were reduced to 89 for two on the penultimate day and the visitors now require another 322 runs with eight wickets remaining on the last day of the match on Tuesday.
Opener Jalaj Saxena (46 batting) and Rameez Khan (4 batting) were at the crease when stumps were drawn for the day.
Saurashtra, currently placed fifth on the table with 17 points, would look for an outright victory to earn the vital six points and finish among the top three teams from Group A.
On the other hand, Madhya Pradesh, with 20 points from seven games, are placed third on the table but a defeat on Tuesday will put them out of contention for a knockout berth as only top-three teams from both Group A and B will qualify for the next stage.
But if Madhya Pradesh manage to eke out a draw, then they have an outside chance of making it to the quarters.
Meanwhile, resuming their second innings at 18 for one, the hosts lost their overnight batsman Sitanshu Kotak (6) and skipper Jaydev Shah (0) early.
Ranji Trophy round-up: Group A: At Mumbai: Gujarat: 244 and 159/5 in 53.5 overs (Parthiv Patel 47, Manpreet Juneja 39 batting, Samit Gohel 27; Javed Khan 2-22, Ankeet Chavan 2-59) vs Mumbai: 447 all out in 134.2 overs (Wasim Jaffer 171, Hiken Shah 82, Abhishek Nayar 72 n.o., Suryakumar Yadav 42; Kushang Patel 3-79, Rush Kalaria 3-80, Samit Gohel 2-27).
At Rajkot: Saurashtra: 242 and 303/4 decl in 76 overs (Cheteshwar Pujara 203 n.o., Aarpit Vasavada 55, Rahul Dave 25 n.o.; Ishwar Pandey 3-51) vs Madhya Pradesh: 135 and 89/2 in 24 overs (Jalaj Saxena 46 batting).
At Jaipur: Rajasthan: 384 and 103/2 in 35 overs (Vineet Saxena 54 batting, Robin Bist 30) vs Hyderabad: 349 all out in 96.5 overs (Parth Jhala 75, Ashish Reddy 62, Kolla Sumanth 43, Akshath Reddy 41, Hanuma Vihari 38, Amol Shinde 33; Rituraj Singh 4-86, Aniket Choudhary 2-57, Pankaj Singh 2-95).
At Kolkata: Railways 214 and 314/9 decl in in 88 overs (Mahesh Rwat 75 n.o., Krishnakant Upadhayaya 55, Amit Paunikar 54, Shivakant Shukla 39, Nitin Bhille 26; Abhishek Jhunjhunwala 3-42, Shib Sankar Paul 2-48, Veer Pratap Singh 2-54) vs Bengal: 157 and 13/1 in 7 overs.
Group B: At Nagpur: Delhi 523/9 decl vs Vidarbha: 257 all out in 85.4 overs (Hemang Badani 68, Shalabh Shrivastava 45, Faiz Fazal 34, Shrikant Wagh 29 n.o.; Sumit Narwal 2-27, Vikas Mishra 2-38, Rajat Bhatia 2-41, Pradeep Sangwan 2-74) and following on 1/0 in 3 overs.
At Cuttack: Uttar Pradesh: 160 and 111 bt Odisha: 127 and 101 all out in 37.2 overs (Govind Podder 36; Imtiaz Ahmed 5-29, Ankit Rajpoot 3-42, Ali Murtaza 2-4). UP: 6 points; Odisha: 0.
At Chennai: Tamil Nadu: 571/6 decl in in 170.3 overs (Dinesh Kaarthick 187, Vijay Shankar 100 n.o., Abhinva Mukund 60, KB Arun Karthik 54, Yo Mahesh 57 n.o., Baba Aparajith 42, Ramaswamy Prasanna 33; Yuzvendra Chahal 3-235, Mohit Sharma 2-77) vs Haryana: 7/0 in 3 overs.
Group C: At Porvorim: Goa: 381 and 11/0 in 7 overs vs Assam: 366 all out 123. 3 overs (Sibsankar Roy 87, Pallavkumar Das 70, Dheeraj Jadhav 52, Amit Sinha 39; Shadab Jakati 4-72, Gauresh Gawas 2-81).
At Cuddapah: Andhra: 329 and 38/0 in 6 overs (Srikhar Bharat 30 batting) vs Kerala: 312 all out in 98.5 overs (Sanju Samson 122, V A Jagadeesh 117, Rohan Prem 25; Paidikalva Vijayakumar 4-77, T Atchuta Rao 4-78, Syed Shahabuddin 2-43). At Delhi: Services: 185 and 152 all out in 60.4 overs (Avishek Sinha 47 n.o.; Ajay Yadav 6-43, Shahbaz Nadeem 4-64) vs Jharkhand: 120 and 35/0 in 11 overs.
At Jammu: Tripura: 226/5 in 85 overs (Subhrajit Roy 86, Abbas Ali 50 batting, Ajay Ratra 35 batting; Parvez Rassol 3-42) vs Jammu & Kashmir (match affected by rain).