A sparkling maiden double century by Suresh Raina helped Uttar Pradesh amass a mammoth 410 for 7 on the second day of their four-day Elite Group-B Ranji trophy match against Orissa at Barabati stadium in Cuttack on Sunday.
Raina's spectacular 203 off 217 balls with the help of 27 fours and two sixes placed Uttar Pradesh way ahead of Orissa's 216, giving an impressive first innings lead of 194 runs with three more wickets still intact.
Though the visitors had lost three quick wickets on the opening day yesterday to mop up 84 at close and lost opener Shivakant Shukla (35) without any addition to his overnight score, the team bounced back with Raina's awesome batting.
Raina's 141-run fifth wicket partnership with Ravikant Shukla (46) enabled the visitors to surge ahead steadily before Shukla was bowled by Orissa skipper Prabhanjan Mallick when their team's score stood at 230.
Giving no relief to Orissa bowlers, Raina continued to roll and was engaged in a 107 run partnership with M Amir Khan, who scored 37 before being caught by Mallick off Sukanta Khatua.
As Raina stuck around for 374 minutes displaying magnificient shots all around the wicketsa and giving a notice to the Indian selectors, leg spinner Piyush Chawla scored a quickfire 59 with nine hits to the fence and was still at crease at close with R Mishra batting one.
Orissa bowlers struggled to tame the Uttar Pradesh middle order despite their early success on the opening day by capturing three quick wickets and conceding only 84 runs.
The only solace for the team was the show put up by medium fast bowlers Khatua and Pritamjit Das. While Khatua grabbed three wickets including that of Raina, who was caught by Niranjan Behera, Das captured the key wickets of UP skipper Mohd Kaif and Shivakant Shukla.
Despite his 27 tidy overs, including five maidens, giving away only 79 runs, India discard Debashis Mohanty had to be content with the wicket of only Tanmay Shrivastav.
Skipper Mallick captured one wicket, P Jayachandra, S Satpathy and N Behera were yet to grab any.
Scorecard
Orissa 1st innings
R Parida b Tyagi 1
S Das lbw b Tyagi 75
N Behera lbw b Tyagi 1
S Biswal c Amir Khan b Tyagi 0
P Mullick b Abid Khan 16
P Jayachandra c Amir Khan b Piyush Chawla 55
H Das c Amir Khan b Tyagi 14
D Mohanty c Piyush Chawla b Shukla 27
S Satpathy c Amir Khan b Tyagi 0
S Khatua c Mishra b Shukla 7
Preetamjit Das not out 1
Extras (b 8, lb 9, w 1, nb 1) 19
Total (all out; 64 overs; 263 mins) 216 (3.37 runs per over)
Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-8, 3-8, 4-25, 5-111, 6-154, 7-195, 8-195, 9-215, 10-216
Bowling: M Abid Khan 14-8-33-1, S Tyagi 16.5-6-46-6, R Mishra 11-1-36-0, Ravikant Shukla 4-0-24-0, Piyush Chawla 14.1-5-44-1, S Shukla 4-0-16-2
Uttar Pradesh 1st innings
R Elahi lbw b Khatua 7
SS Shukla c Mohanty b Preetamjit Das 35
TM Srivastava lbw b Mohanty 6
M Kaif b Preetamjit Das 4
SK Raina c Behera b Khatua 203
Ravikant Shukla b Mullick 46
Amir Khan c Mullick b Khatua 37
Piyush Chawla not out 59
R Mishra not out 1
Extras (b 5, lb 6, w 1) 12
Total (7 wickets; 102 overs) 410 (4.01 runs per over)
Fall of wickets: 1-11, 2-27, 3-35, 4-89, 5-230, 6-337, 7-360
Bowling: Mohanty 27 5 79 1, S Khatua 22 4 109 3, Preetamjit Das 13.2 2 47 2, P Jayachandra 11 4 31 0, SK Satpathy 20 2 92 0, N Behera 5 1 28 0, Mullick 3.4 0 13 1