Soon after Swapnil Gugale and Ankit Bawne ran a single in the third session on the second day of the Ranji Trophy match against Delhi, the Maharashtra dressing room — not for the first time — gave them a standing ovation from the Wankhede Stadium balcony.
Gugale, the stand-in captain, gestured with his hands in the air to ask what the cheering was about, and was told that their third-wicket stand was now the highest ever in a First Class match on Indian soil.
At that point, the duo had surpassed the 539 that Sagar Jogiyani and Ravindra Jadeja had put on for Saurashtra against Gujarat at Surat in 2012-13.
Bawne (258 not out) and Gugale (351 not out) were still together 54 runs later, and some thought they would press on for the highest-ever partnership in First Class cricket: 624 by Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara for Sri Lanka against South Africa at Colombo in 2006.
But, Gugale chose to halt the run fest at that point, declaring his side’s first innings at 635 for two.
The Delhi openers, to their credit, saw off the five overs after toiled in the field for nearly 12 hours. But their work is far from done.
The second day’s proceedings, just like the opening day, belonged entirely to Gugale and Bawne. Both batsmen are prone to flashiness and suffer lapses in concentration. However, in this instance, they kept themselves in check on a track that offered the bowlers nothing.
To add to Delhi’s woes, Navdeep Saini, the only bowler who had impressed on the opening day, pulled a stomach muscle after bowling the first ball of the day and could not bowl thereafter. Without his main bowler, Unmukt Chand was forced to use part-timers for the better part of the day.
Gugale, who was dropped twice on the first day, enjoyed further good fortune. He was spilled by Parvinder Awana off left-arm spinner Varun Sood when on 262. Later in the afternoon, ’keeper Rishabh Pant also failed to latch on to a catch and missed out on a stumping chance on either side of Gugale’s triple century.
Bawne, at the other end, continued to stay solid.
More than the drives and flicks, the hallmark of the partnership turned out be the running between the wickets. While Gugale ran 109 singles and 30 twos and threes combined, Bawne had 126 singles and 22 twos and threes.
The scores:
Maharashtra — 1st innings: Swapnil Gugale (not out) 351, Harshad Khadiwale c Chand b Saini 10, Chirag Khurana lbw Saini 4, Ankit Bawne (not out) 258, Extras (b-8, nb-3, w-1) 12; Total (for 2 wkts in 173 overs) 635.
Fall of wkts: 1-27, 2-41.
Delhi bowling: Navdeep Saini 14.1-2-43-2, Parvinder Awana 29-7-97-0, Pawan Suyal 24.5-4-89-0, Manan Sharma 40-3-148-0, Varun Sood 30-1-107-0, Nitish Rana 15-2-41-0, Milind Kumar 17-1-77-0, Unmukt Chand 1-0-9-0, Dhruv Shorey 2-0-15-0.
Delhi — 1st Innings: Unmukt Chand (batting) 4, Mohit Sharma (batting) 14, Extras (b-2, lb-1) 3; Total (for no loss in 5 overs) 21.
Maharashtra bowling: Anupam Sanklecha 2-0-5-0, Mohsin Sayyed 2-1-7-0; Shrikant Mundhe 1-0-6-0.
