Nair hits ton but Vidarbha concede lead

At the end of five rounds, Vidarbha are still on top of Group A table with 20 points, followed by Rajasthan (19), Haryana (17), Saurashtra (16), Services (15), Maharashtra (11), Jharkhand (10) and Manipur (0).

Vidarbha next travel to Pune to face Maharashtra (Feb 9-12) before finishing their league engagements at home against Haryana (Feb 16-19).

After rain and bad light heavily curtailed the action on Day 3 in Jaipur on Sunday, the match was largely reduced to a battle for first innings lead.

Nair kept Vidarbha in the hunt with three useful partnerships. First, he added 90 runs for the third wicket with Yash Rathod (81). Next, he combined with Mohit Kale (48) to add another 81 runs for the fourth wicket before joining forces with skipper Akshay Wadkar (59) to raise 100 runs more for the fifth wicket.

When Nair fell for 112 (258 balls, 4x12), Vidarbha were comfortably placed at 343/5 and required 100 runs more to overhaul Rajasthan’s tally. But once Wadkar fell, Vidarbha’s lower order caved in and their innings folded for 391.

BRIEF SCORES

Rajasthan 1st Innings 432 all out in 130.2 overs (Deepak Hooda 77, Manav Suthar 46, A Kookna 83; Harsh Dubey 3/110, Aditya Sarvate 2/83, Darshan Nalkande 2/90)

Vidarbha 1st Innings 391 all out in 125.3 overs (Dhruv Shorey 31, Yash Rathod 81, Karun Nair 112, Mohit Kale 48, Akshay Wadkar 59; Manav Suthar 5/133, A Kookna 3/102)

Result: Match drawn; Rajasthan took 1st innings lead