The pace-spin combination of Parminder Awana, who claimed a hat-trick, and Chaitanya Nanda shared eight wickets between them in Delhi's seven-wicket victory over hosts Maharashtra in a four-day Ranji Trophy Super League encounter in Nagothane on Wednesday.
Trailing by 190 runs, Maharashtra resumed the day at 129 for four and were shot out for 240, leaving an easy victory target of 51 runs for the Delhi team.
The visitors overhauled the small target to bag five points albeit they lost three wickets in the process.
Delhi have now taken their points tally to 17 to take the top spot in Group A while Maharashtra remained on 15.
In his hat-trick spell, Awana bagged the wickets of Vishal Bhilare (34), Kedar Jadhav (0) and former Maharashtra captain Sairaj Bahutule (0) to steal the honours at the Reliance Cricket Stadium in only his second Ranji match.
The youngster trapped Bhilare and Jadhav before the wicket, before castling Bahutule in his seventh over of a new spell to reduce Maharashtra from a more comfortable 202 for four to a perilous 202 for seven before Nanda joined the party.
Awana had bagged the wicket of opener Vishant More on Tuesday while Nanda played the perfect foil to take the important wicket of Yogesh Takawale, who top-scored with 75 in 125 balls with a six and five fours, in his four-wicket haul.
Delhi take on Karnataka next away from home while Maharashtra play against Saurashtra at the same venue here. Both ties are to be held from December 17-20.
Scorecard:
Maharashtra (1st innings): 219
Delhi (1st innings): 409
Maharashtra (2nd innings, overnight 129/4):
V More b Awana 27
H Khadiwale lbw b Sangwan 0
H Kanitkar st Bisht b Nanda 50
Y Venugopal Rao lbw b Sangwan 13
V Takawale lbw b Nanda 75
V Bhilare lbw b Awana 34
K Jadhav lbw b Awana 0
S Bahutule b Awana 0
S Agharkar b Nanda 17
S Fallah not out 4
W Sayyed b Nanda 1
Extras: (b 7, lb 7, w 3, nb 2) 19
Total: (all out in 74.3 overs) 240
Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-63, 3-98, 4-102, 5-202, 6-202, 7-202, 8-224, 9-237, 10-240
Bowling: P Sangwan 17-5-46-2, P Awana 16-2-62-4, C Nanda 23.3-4-70-4, R Bhatia 3-2-1-0, V Sehwag 1-0-5-0, N Singh 14-2-42-0
Delhi (2nd innings):
A Chopra st More b Agharkar 2
S Dhawan lbw b Fallah 7
R Bhatia c sub (D Waghmare) b Agharkar 3
M Tehlan not out 13
M Manhas not out 13
Extras: (b 4, w 1, nb 8) 13
Total: (for 3 wickets in 14.5 overs) 51
Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-12, 3-20
Bowling: S Agharkar 7.5-4-14-2, S Fallah 4-0-16-1, S Bahutule 2-0-12-0, W Sayyed 1-0-5-0