Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai decided against enforcing the follow-on after taking a huge lead of 297 runs over Rest of India on Day 3 of the five-day Irani Cup match at the Brabourne stadium, in Mumbai, on Tuesday.
The 41-time National champions bundled out the Rest for 306, which was mainly built around Karnataka batsman Karun Nair's 94, in reply to their own mammoth first innings total of 603.
However, Mumbai opted to bat instead of enforcing the follow-on and were 2 for 1 in their second innings at stumps.
On Tuesday morning, Rest resumed their first innings at the overnight score of 36 for one but lost the wicket of opener Faiz Fazal early, after the addition of only 19 runs.
A stand of 55 between night-watchman Jayant Yadav (48) and Sudip Chatterjee (23) took the score past the 100 mark before Mumbai struck hard by sending back both as well as captain Naman Ojha. It left Rest struggling at 128 for 5.
It was left to Nair, who batted for 275 minutes and struck 11 fours in his 192-ball knock, to revive the tottering innings with help from Sheldon Jackson (37) and tail-ender Jaydev Unadkat (48).
With Jackson, Nair added 59 runs for the sixth wicket and Unadkat he put on 91 for the ninth wicket before he was last out when in the company of No 10 Krishna Das, as injured Ankeet Rajput did not come out to bat.
The bulk of the wickets were taken by medium pacer Abhishek Nayar (3 for 35) and the two spinners – left-arm Iqbal Abdullah (2 for 62) and off-spinner Jay Bista (2 for 52).
Mumbai lost Akhil Herwadkar cheaply to off-spin bowler Jayant Yadav off the fourth ball of their innings before stumps were drawn with first innings centurion Bista on 1.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai: 603 and 2-1 (J Bista batting 1).
Rest of India: 306 (Jayant Yadav 46, Karun Nair 94, Sheldon Jackson 37, Jaydev Unadkat 48; Abhishek Nayar 3-35, Iqbal Abdullah 2-62, Jay Bista 2- 52).
