JOIN USMukund and Arun Karthik shared 194 runs for the second-wicket before the latter fell prey to a run out. Mukund faced 229 deliveries and struck 12 boundaries during his unbeaten innings, while Arun Karthik decorated his 179-ball knock with 13 fours and a six. S Badrinath gave Mukund company at the crease on 18 at stumps.
Saurashtra bowlers toiled hard all throughout the day with only pacer Sandip Maniar (1/52) registering his name in the wicket list.
Opting to bat, Tamil Nadu did not have a great start to their innings as they lost opener Srikkanth Anirudha (2) early, bowled by Maniar at the team score of nine. But after that, Mukund and Arun Karthik batted flawlessly and mixed caution with aggression to take the visitors to 242 in 73 overs.
In Mumbai, three early strikes by pacer Rohan Raje and a four-wicket haul by spinner Iqbal Abdullah helped hosts Mumbai restrict Railways to 201 on day one of the Group A Ranji Trophy Elite division match.
In reply, champions Mumbai scored 42 for one, losing opener Omkar Gurav leg before wicket for 18.
Brief scores: Group A: At Kolkata: Bengal: 257/5 in 88 overs (Arindam Das 30, Manoj Tiwary 50, Wriddhiman Saha 60 n.o., Laxmi Ratan Shukla 75 n.o.; Ranjitkumar Mali 2-60) vs Assam.
At Rajkot: Tamil Nadu: 242/2 in 73.0 overs (Abhinav Mukund 102 n.o., Arun Karthik 107) vs Saurashtra.
At Delhi: Gujarat: 71 all out in 23.4 overs (Sumit Narwal 3-23, Pawan Suyal 4-27, Pradeep Sangwan 3-16) vs Delhi: 39/0 in 9 overs.
At Mumbai: Railways: 201 all out in 71.1 overs (Vairamudi Cheluvaraj 38, Yere Goud 37, Prashant Awasthi 61; Rohan Raje 3-41, Ramesh Powar 2-42, Iqbal Abdulla 4-42) vs Mumbai: 42/1 in 17 overs.
Group B: At Vadodara: Uttar Pradesh: 190 all out in 70 overs (Parvinder Singh 85, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 47; Munaf Patel 4-49, Yusuf Pathan 5-41) vs Baroda: 59/1 in 18 overs (Jaykishan Kolsawala 34 n.o.).
At Dharamsala: Himachal Pradesh: 256/4 in 90.0 overs (Bhavin Thakkar 38, Sangram Singh 31, VA Indulkar 60, Paras Dogra 65, Manvinder Bisla 34 n.o.) vs Punjab.