Railways is refusing to give up. In arrears by a substantial 168 runs, its top order — led by the brave and bold Shreyas Khanolkar (56, 51b, 7 x 4s) — made a last-ditch attempt to take the contest into the last day of the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Baroda at the Moti Bagh Palace ground.
After three days, the odds are much in favour of the home team featuring in the semifinals to be played during the first week of the new year, but assertive and hard-hitting response in the second half of Sunday by Khanolkar, Murali Kartik (28 off 31 balls), Prashant Awasthi (85 batting, 94 balls, 10x4) and Karan Sharma (30, 36 balls, 5x4) enabled the visitor to clean up the deficit in 34 overs. It will now hope to set a reasonable fourth innings target before lunch on the fourth and final day. At stumps on the third day, Railways was 52 runs ahead with six wickets in hand.
With 90 overs remaining in the match, Railways has its task cut out to spring a surprise, but it's not altogether ruling out its chances in the light of the fact that Baroda choked against Uttar Pradesh at the same venue chasing a modest target.
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Resuming at a formidable looking 303 for four and with Kedar Devdhar at 122, Baroda fell to Jai Prakash Yadav, Anureet Singh and Sanjay Bangar's manipulation with the second new ball.
Devdhar played across to be declared leg before and Rakesh Solanki and skipper Pinal Shah nicked to wicket-keeper. In less than half an hour, Baroda declined to 308 for seven before the lower order defied and put together 108 runs with the last wicket pair in Sankalp Vohra and Munaf Patel raising 70 runs.
Surprisingly Munaf Patel — who had taken four wickets in the first innings — did not take the field and Baroda suffered from his absence. The home team picked up two crucial wickets in the last half an hour when left-arm seamer Vohra held a smart catch off his own bowling and left arm spinner Bhargav Bhatt had Karan Sharma slog-sweeping to Jaikishan Kolsawala at deep backward square leg.
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The scores:
Railways — 1st innings: 248
Baroda — 1st innings: C. Williams c Rawat b Anureet 21, J. Kolsawala b Bangar 18, K. Devdhar lbw b Yadav 122, Y. Pathan c Anureet b Bangar 68, A. Rayudu lbw b K.Sharma 41, R. Solanki c Rawat b Anureet 23, P. Shah c Rawat b Yadav 0, S. Vohra (not out) 34, B. Bhatt lbw b Bangar 15, M. Vahora c Khanolkar b Yadav 14, M. Patel c Salvi b Kartik 36, Extras (b-5, lb-4, nb-12, w-3): 24; Total (in 128.5 overs) 416
Fall of wickets: 1-36, 2-70, 3-185, 4-264, 5-304, 6-304, 7-308, 8-326, 9-346.
Railways bowling: Anureet 29-7-90-2, Yadav 31-13-63-3, Bangar 24-10-62-3, Kartik 26.5-2-96-1, Chauhan 9-0-56-0, K.Sharma 9-2-40-1.
Railways — 2nd innings: S. Khanolkar c & b Vohra 56, M. Kartik c Williams b Vohra 28, S. Bangar c Shah b Vahora 1, P. Awasthi batting 85, K. Sharma c Kolsawala b Bhatt 30, J.P. Yadav batting 8, Extras (b-4, lb-5, nb-1, w-2): 12; Total (for 4 wkts in 42 overs) 220
Fall of wickets: 1-44, 2-45, 3-148, 4-210.
Baroda bowling: Mahora 11-1-54-1, Vohra 11-0-49-2, Bhatt 11-0-56-1, Y. Pathan 9-0-52-0.