Pacers Praful Hingne (2/42) and Aditya Thakare (1/20) too shared the spoils to hand Vidarbha a handy 74-run lead.
Vidarbha stretched their lead to 99 runs as they ended the day on 25/3 in their second innings. Dhruv Shorey, Atharva Taide and Aman Mokhade were were the men out.
Resuming on 45/1, Pondicherry made slow progress but kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Pondicherry skipper Arun Karthick top-scored with 49 and was the last man to be dismissed by Dubey.
BRIEF SCORES (Day 3)
Vidarbha 1st innings: 283 all out in 96.5 overs (Yash Rathod 118, Akshay Wadkar 31, Harsh Dubey 76; Gourav Yadav 4/65)
Pondicherry 1st innings: 209 all out in 91overs (Arun Karthick 49, Mohit Kale 32, Anand Bais 33; Harsh Dubey 3/53, Akshay Wakhare 3/50)
Vidarbha 2nd innings: 25/3 in 12 overs
Match Situation: Vidarbha lead by 99 runs
Himachal 254/3 in CK Nayudu Trophy
Vidarbha’s Ganesh Bhosle struck two early blows and Sanyog Bhagwat dismissed Innesh Mahajan for 52 before Aryavrat Sharma (97) and Mridul Surroch (87) got together and added 155 runs for the fourth wicket without being separated to help Himachal post 254/3 at close of play on day 1 of their CKNayudu Trophy match at VCA’s Kalamna ground on Sunday.