Skipper Mohammed Kaif was eyeing a hundred as he led the Central Zone fightback against West Zone on the second day of their Duleep Trophy match in Rajkot on Sunday.
Kaif played a magnificent unbeaten knock of 96 and shared an unseparated 103-run stand for the sixth wicket with Mahesh Rawat (40 not out) to lift his team from the pits as they were once reduced to 134 for five.
Central Zone were 237 for five in their first innings at stumps, in reply to West Zone's 411 all out.
Kaif hit 12 boundaries in his knock, which came off 182 balls while Rawat took 109 balls with seven fours for his unbeaten 40.
Central started their innings on a shaking note as they lost both the openers --Vinit Saxena (2) and Tanmay Srivastav (12)-- cheaply.
Jalaj Saxena resisted opposition attack for a while by making quick fire 46 off just 35 balls with nine fours.
Harshad Rawle (3) and Sanjay Banger (26) also departed early, leaving Central Zone reeling at 134 for five.
Central were still trailing by 174 runs when the day ended.
For West Zone, Munaf Patel and left arm leg spinner Rakesh Dhruv claimed two wickets each while Siddharth Trivedi took a wicket.
Earlier, resuming at overnight 349 for 7, West Zone added another 62 runs to their total.
Overnight batsman, Dhruv failed to add to his 21 and departed in the first over of the day but Sandeep Jobanputra frustrated Central's bowler making 45 off 57 balls.
Sanjay Bangar and S S Sanyal were the successful bowlers taking four wickets each.