Delhi face defeat; Pujara hits 17th first-class double

Delhi are staring at a dispiriting defeat to Pondicherry in their opening fixture of the 2023/24 Ranji Trophy season. At the end of Day 3 of their Group D match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, the hosts were 126/8 in the second innings, a lead of just 30 runs.

Pondicherry went past Delhi's first-innings total of 148 early on Sunday, which earns three points, but an outright win is what they will be after given their commanding position.

While pacer Navdeep Saini, who was named on Saturday in the India A squad for games against England Lions, got his act together to dismiss Paras Ratnaparkhe and Paras Dogra in his opening spell of the day, Krishna Pandey's 45-ball 44 at No. 8 took the visitors to 244 for a 96-run lead.

It proved to be quite a stiff lead for Delhi to overcome as their batting unit again succumbed to an incisive Pondicherry attack that seldom dished up bad deliveries.

If Gourav Yadav wreaked havoc in Delhi's first innings with careerbest figures of 7/49, it was the turn of his new-ball partner Abin Mathew to cause problems this time.