A fine century by opener Ravneet Ricky and his 124-run third wicket stand with Pankaj Dharmani helped Punjab reach 279 for three on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy Elite Group 'B' match against Assam in Amritsar on Tuesday.

Electing to bat, Punjab got off to a good start, before Reetinder Sodhi (34) fell to R Sathish, with the total on 97.

Yuvraj Singh (29) did not last for long when he was caught by S V Saravanan off Arnald Konwar with the Punjab total on 155.

Ricky who made 133, and Dharmani, then tamed the Assam attack as the scoreboard moved up steadily. Ricky finally fell when he was caught by Zakaria Zuffri off P K Das.

At close, Dharmani (62) and G Gupta (5) were at the crease.

Scorecard

Punjab (1st innings):
R Ricky c Zuffri b Das 133
R Sodhi c Zuffri b Sathish 34
Yuvraj Singh c Saravanan b Konwar 29
P Dharmani not out 62
G Gupta not out 5

Extras: (b 8, lb 7, w 3, nb 16) 34

Total: (3 wickets, 90 overs) 297

To Bat: A Kakkar, C Madan, Navdeep Singh, Gagandeep Singh, Rajesh Sharma, V Sharma.

Fall of wickets: 1-97, 2-155, 3-279.

Bowling: Javed Zaman 20-4-58-0, Yadav 11-0-42-0, Das 15-4-37-1, Sukhvinder Singh 26-7-67-0, Sathish 4-1-20-1, Konwar 12-0-50-1, Aziz 2-0-8-0.