Mumbai: Guajrat spinner Mohnish Parmar struck telling blows to restrict Railways to 202 for seven at close of the first day's play in the Ranji Trophy Plate final at the Brabourne stadium here on Saturday.

Railways were 202 for seven at close on day one with Harshad Rawle being the only batsman to stand up against the Gujarat bowling. He remained unbeaten on 89 and giving him company was Harvinder Singh on 11.

In the morning, Railways captain Murali Kartik won the toss and elected to bat on a wicket which did have some juice in it but overall a batting wicket.

Siddharth Trivedi, opening the bowling along with Ashraf Makda, had the Railways on the backfoot with two quick wickets of Siddhartha Joshi and Karan Sharma both being caught in the slips by Timil Patel for 0 and 8 respectively as the team slipped to 18 for two in the 11th over.

Sanjay Bangar and Harshad Rawale then steadied the Railways with 49-run stand for the third wicket before Bangar was caught behind by Parthiv Patel off Ashraf Makda for 26,  Railways went into lunch with 67/3.

Rawale, at the other end, grew in confidence as he showed how easy the wicket was turning out with crisp off drives and a couple of eye-catching straight drives to reach his 50 after facing 127 balls and the innings was studded by eight hits to the fence.

Railways, however paid the price for not building up partnerships.

Whenever it looked like a good partnership was in the offing, a wicket would fall to set them back.

Off-spinner Mohanish Parmar then struck getting Sanjib Sanyal, Raja Ali and Murali Kartik to put Gujarat on top. Parmar finished the day with 3 for 56.

Brief Score (D-1):

Railways Ist innings 202/7 (Harshad Rawle 89 n o, Sanjay Bangar 26, Rawat 24; Parmar 3 for 56, Siddarth Trivedi 2 for 40) Vs Gujarat

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Tags: ranji trophy, plate final, gujarat-railways, parmar, harshad rawle, siddarth trivedi, sanjay bangar.