Rizwan who was very meticulous all through in his batting made one silly mistake when on 94, which cost him his century.

At stumps, Vedant and wicket-keeper Satyajit Satbhai remained not out on 57 and 16 respectively.

Gujarat skipper, Kevin Desai, had things going his way as the hosts batsmen lost their patience. He grabbed two wickets and was also instrumental in the fall of the other two, thus making it a truly memorable birthday for him.

The former captain of the West Zone under-16 team, Kevin, in his maiden appearance as skipper for Gujarat, went wicketless in his first spell (16-4-43-0) but came back to scalp two wickets in his second spell of nine overs, which included the prized wicket of Rizwan Anwar. His quick reflexes saw him run out Kapil Laghate in a direct hit. It was Kapil who had steadied the innings with Rizwan after the loss of three early wickets.

The wicket offered nothing to the Gujarat bowlers but the Maharashtra's batsmen committed harakiri as the first three wickets fell slashing out at out-swingers.

Gujarat coach, Anil Patel, was delighted when they had three wickets in the first hour of play, but turned grim at the end of the day's play. ``We should have had more wickets, but my bowlers were bowling too short,'' he commented later.

His counterpart Anwar Shaikh was quite content with the days proceedings. ``It has been a very good recovery, after the earlier setback. Rizwan was unlucky to have missed his century, but Vedant and Satbhai are doing their job''.

Scoreboard
Maharashtra: 1st Innings: Rizwan Anwar c Vipul Patel b Kevin Desai 94 (204b, 236m, 11x4), Dhiraj Jadhav c Kevin b Siddharth Trivedi 09 (40b 49m 1x4), Vivek Deshmukh c Pallav Vora b Siddharth Trivedi 01 (4b, 7m), Pankaj Phalke c Kevin Desai b Vipul Patel 26 (30b, 47m 3x4, 1x6), Kapil Lagate run out (Kevin Desai) 32 98b, 82m 5x4), Vedant Patwardhan not out 57 (114b, 157m, 10x4), Rohan Dharwat b Kevin Desai 0, Satyajit Satbhai not out 16 (91b, 3x4, 116m).
Extras: (b2, lb1, nb5, w4) 12.
Total: (for 6 wickets) 247.
Fall of wickets: 1-23, 2-25, 3-65, 4-148, 5-172, 6-173.
Bowling: Vipul Patel 20-6-45-1, Siddharth Trivedi 15-6-25-2, Kevin Desai 32-8-80-2, Anket patel 20-2-71-0, Vivek Gandhi 7-0-23-0.