Rujul Bhatt's ton takes Gujarat to mammoth score

Ahmedabad: Rujul Bhatt smashed a sparkling 150 as Gujarat piled up a mammoth 513 for 8 declared to put themselves in the drivers' seat on the second day of their Ranji Trophy Group B cricket match against Punjab here on Wednesday.

Resuming the day at 284/4, Gujarat added 229 runs in 81 overs before declaring their innings towards the end of play today at the Sardar Patel Stadium at Motera here.

Left-handed Bhatt, overnight 37, stitched 112 runs with Manpreet Juneja (32) for the sixth wicket to take the Gujarat score to a big one. His another big partnership of the innings with Y Venugopal Rao (75) though ended in the fifth over of the morning at team score of 291/5.

Bhatt hit 13 boundaries in his 315-ball knock while occupying the crease for more than seven and a half hours.

Ramesh Powar and Rush Kalaria also contributed 37 and 38 not out down the order to take the home team score past 500 before declaring.

In reply, Punjab were nine for no loss from seven overs in their first innings with Jiwanjot Singh and Uday Kaul batting on three and five respectively at the draw of stumps.

Brief Scores:

Gujarat: 513 for 8 declared in 171 overs (Rujul Bhatt 150, Priyank Kirit Panchal 85, Y Venugopal Rao 75; Vinay Choudhary 3/149)

Punjab: 9 for 0 in 7 overs.