Pujara scored century, Saurashtra in command

Rajkot, Nov 10 (UNI) Cheteswhar Pujara's unbeaten century helped Saurashtra to tighten their grip on the match, scoring 273 for four, against Orissa in the opening day of the four-day super league Ranji match here today.

After two triple centuries in C K Nayudu trophy recently, Cheteshwar Pujara again proved his batting ability and hit an unbeaten 128 with sixteen fours, facing 221 balls.

Saurashtra openers, Kanaya Vaghela and Bhushan Chauhan, failed to give a good start as both made early exits after scoring eleven and four runs respectively. Medium pacers B Mohanty and D Mohanty dismissed them in a similar fashion as both were caught at first slip by S S Das. At this stage, Saurashtra were 26 for 2.

Yet to recover from two early jolts, medium pacer B Mohanty again struck and removed hosts captain Jaydev Shah, caught at first slip by S S Das. It seems that Saurashtra were repeating their poor batting performance as they had shown against Gujarat in their first encounter in which they had suffered humiliating defeat by an innings and 227 runs. But Sitanshu Kotak and Cheteshwar Pujara repaired the damage by adding 73 runs for the fourth wicket before former was trapped lbw off right arm leg spinner N Behra after scoring 37 runs.

Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja made a valuable 173 runs unbeaten partnership and carried the innings from 100 for four to 273 for four at the end of the day.

At stumps, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja were batting with 128 and 71 runs respectively.

Brief score : Saurashtra Ist Innings 273 for four wicket in 90 overs (Cheteswhar Pujara not out 128, Ravindra Jadeja not out 71, B Mohanty two for 70, D Mohanty one for 29 and N Behera one for 47).

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