Rest of India comfortably poised in Irani Trophy tie

Nagpur, Oct 10 (UNI) Rest of India (RoI) were comfortably placed at 45 without loss at the end of the second day's play in the Irani Trophy match after being set a target of 114 for victory by Uttar Pradesh.

Captain Wasim Jaffer with 25 and Gautam Gambhir with 18 were at the crease when stumps were drawn. RoI now need 69 more runs for victory with 10 wickets in hand.

Earlier, UP were bundled out for 166 in 50.1 overs in their second innings, ending up merely 113 runs ahead of RoI. Only skipper Jyoti Yadav (38), Shivkant Shukla (33) and Gyanendra Pande (32) salvaged some prestige. As many as six UP batsmen failed to reach double digits, with three going back for a duck.

V R V Singh inflicted the most damage on UP by capturing four wickets for 40 runs. Zaheer Khan and L Balaji scalped two wickets each.

UP had to toil in the morning to wrap up the RoI first innings, taking 90 minutes to send the three remaining batsmen back after RoI added 70 to their overnight score of 131 for seven. S Badrinath had an excellent outing, remaining unbeaten with 80 runs to his credit with 16 hits to the fence. He completed his 50 off 77 balls with 10 boundaries.

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