Kolkata: Indian Test team mainstay and Saurashtra skipper Cheteshwar Pujara smashed his way to a scintillating 204 to register his 12th first class double hundred- the most by an Indian.
The Saurashtra skipper went past Vijay Merchant who had scored 11 double tons. The right-handed Pujara hit 28 fours in his marathon knock and helped Saurashtra end their innings at 553/9.
He didn’t have a good time in England and could only score a mere 98 runs in six innings. Nonetheless, his coming back to form would indeed boost the Indians ahead of their Test series against Sri Lanka.
Also, Manoj Tiwary’s 123 of 223 balls helped Bengal post 419 runs on the board at home. Even pacers like Mohammad Shami and Ashok Dinda- the duo who have been absolutely lethal with the ball in hand.
Brief scores-
Rajkot: Jharkhand 52/2 (Sumit Kumar 23 n.o, Shasheem Rathour 12; Jaydev Unadkat 2/13) trail Saurashtra 553/9 decl. (Cheteshwar Pujara 204, Chirag Jani 108; Ashish Kumar 3/76) by 501 runs.
Kolkata: Himachal Pradesh 163/5 (Sumeet Verma 64, Priyanshu Khanduri 52; Ashok Dinda 2/39) trail Bengal 419 (Abhishek Raman 176, Manoj Tiwary 123; Rishi Dhawan 4/86) by 256 runs.
Other matches-
Nagpur: Services 141/4 (G Rahul Singh 57 n.o, Ravi Chauhan 44; Akshay Wakhare 3/43) trail Vidarbha 385 (Faiz Fazal 136, Ganesh Satish 78; Nitin Tanwar 2/42) by 244 runs.
Bhubaneswar: Mumbai 289 and 58/3 (Prithvi Shaw 46, Suryakumar Yadav 9 n.o; Deepak Behera 1/6) lead Odisha 145 (Biplab Samantray 72, Santanu Mishra 36; Vijay Gohil 3/26) by 202 runs.
Vizianagaram: Andhra Pradesh 177/5 (Hanuma Vihari 77, Bodapati Sumanth 57; Mihir Hirwani 2/33) trail Madhya Pradesh 321 (Harpreet Singh 88, Shubham Sharma 60; Yarra Prithviraj 4/56) by 144 runs.
Raipur: Punjab 481/6 (Anmolpreet Singh 171 n.o, Gurkeerat Singh 111; Shourabh Khairwar 3/90) lead Chattisgarh 238 (Vishal Singh 76, Jalaj Saxena 52; Manpreet Gony 4/41) by 243 runs.
Delhi: Railways 35/1 (Shivakant Shukla 12 n.o, Nitin Bhille 10 n.o; T Ravi Teja 1/8) trail Hyderabad 474/9 (Ambati Rayudu 112, Bavanaka Sandeep 82; Manish Rao 3/76) by 439 runs.
Delhi: 228/6 (Gautam Gambhir 86, Dhruv Shorey 65 n.o; Saurabh Kumar 3/74) trail Uttar Pradesh 291 (Mohammad Saif 83, Upendra Yadav 67; Ishant Sharma 3/38) by 63 runs.
Pune: Karnataka 461/2 (Mayank Agarwal 219 n.o, Ravikumar Samarth 129; Swapnil Gugale 1/32) lead Maharashtra 245 (Rahul Tripathi 120, Naushad Shaikh 69; Vinay Kumar 6/59) by 216 runs.
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala 219 and 45/1 (Vishnu Vinod 20, Jalaj Saxena 16 n.o; Ram Dayal 1/12) lead Jammu and Kashmir 173 (Shubham Khajuria 41, Bandeep Singh 39; Akshay Chandran 4/37) by 91 runs.
Valsad: Gujarat 236 and 110/2 (Priyank Panchal 61, Parthiv Patel 23; Amit Mishra 2/27) lead Haryana 157 (Rohit Parmod Sharma 65, Himanshu Rana 50; Piyush Chawla 4/84) by 189 runs.
Vadodara: Tripura 63/1 (Samrat Singha 41, Bishal Ghosh 19 n.o; Atit Sheth 1/18) trail Baroda 521 ( Vishnu Solanki 116, Atit Sheth 95 n.o; Ajoy Sarkar 3/88) by 458 runs.