Ranji Trophy: Kukreja saves Mumbai the blushes

A middle-order collapse left champions Mumbai struggling at 244 for seven against Punjab on the second day of their Ranji Trophy Super League match at the Sector-16 Punjab Cricket Stadium at Chandigarh Wednesday.

Mumbai opener Sahil Kukreja scored 90 off 153 balls but lacked the support from his teammates. Mumbai were reduced to 65 for three before a 115-run stand between Kukreja and Abhishek Nayar (53) stemmed the rot. Love Ablish took four wickets for 53 runs for Punjab.

Earlier, Punjab added 17 runs to their overnight score of 242 for nine and were bowled out for 259, after deciding to bat Tuesday.

At Vadodara, Shikhar Dhawan hit a double century as Delhi piled up a massive 591 all out in the first innings. Rajat Bhatia was dismissed after adding eight runs to his overnight score of 70. For Baroda, Yusuf Pathan took three wickets. The hosts were 21 for no loss at the end of second day.

At Meerut, Karnataka's Manish Pandey missed his maiden double century, being dismissed by Shalabh Srivastava (4-76) on his overnight score of 194. Uttar Pradesh were 214 for eight at end of day's play with Amir Khan striking half-century.

Brief scores:

Mumbai vs Punjab: Punjab 259 all out (Ravi Inder Singh 104; Ajit Agarkar 4-43, Zaheer Khan 4-60); Mumbai 244 for 7 (Sahil Kukreja 90, Abhishek Nayar 53; Love Ablish 4-53).

Delhi vs Baroda: Delhi 591 all out (Shikhar Dhawan 224, Rajat Bhatia 78, Mayank Tehlan 55, Yogesh Nayar 55; Yusuf Pathan 3-148, Rakesh Solanki 3-73); Baroda 21 /0.

Gujarat vs. Orissa: Gujarat 270 all out and 4/0 ( Parthiv Patel 86, Rujul Bhatt 46; Dhiraj Singh 4-97, Debasis Mohanty 3-45); Orissa all out for 192 (Niranjan Behera 78, Rakesh Mohanty 34; Siddharth Trivedi 2-19, Ashraf Makda 2-39, Mehul Pate; 2-38).

Railways vs. Tamil Nadu: Railways 327 all out (Sanjay Bangar 163 not out, Faiz Fazal 70; Abhibnav Mukund 3-5, R. Ashwin 3-104); Tamil Nadu 150/2 (Murali Vijay not out 65, Arun Karthik 47).

Karanataka vs. Uttar Pradesh: Karanataka 405 all out (Manish Pandey 194, Rahul Dravid 97; Shalabh Srivastava 4-76, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 4-109) Uttar Pradesh 214/8 (Amir Khan 50, Parvinder Singh 32; Abhimanyu Mithun 5-63, R. Vinay Kumar 2-51.

Last updated on Nov 4^th, 2009 at 20:32 pm IST--IANS