Ruturaj Gaikwad compensated for the failure of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer, compiling a wonderfully paced 184 as West Zone fought back to reach 363 for six against Central Zone on the first day of the Duleep Trophy semifinal here on Thursday.
Tanush Kotian (65) and Shardul Thakur (24) were batting when stumps were drawn at the BCCI Centre of Excellence 'B' grounds, after West batted by choice.
Undoubtedly, Gaikwad, whose innings came of just 206 balls, was the star of the day, coasting to his second successive hundred after making a 133 for Maharashtra against Himachal Pradesh in the Buchi Babu tournament last month.
The right-hander carried that confidence into this match, displaying exquisite timing and footwork to resist the Central bowlers.
However, Gaikwad came to the middle with West struggling at 10 for two after losing Jaiswal (4 off 3 balls), who was trapped in front by pacer Khaleel Ahmed, and Harvik Desai (1), who gave a simple catch to Yash Rathod at first slip off Deepak Chahar.
But from that point, Gaikwad constructed a handy partnership 90 for the second wicket with Aarya Desai as West gradually entered a stabilised phase.
The 28-year-old reached his first fifty in 85 balls, but he floored the pedal in the noon session to go past 100 in 131 balls — his second fifty coming in just 51 balls.
The highlight of Gaikwad's batting was the way he handled the capable spinners of Central Zone — left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey and off-spinner Saransh Jain.
He often executed the late cut and square cut to perfection, amassing 15 boundaries and nearly 100 runs through those regions.
It forced the spinners to adopt a rather straight line and on a slow pitch, the Maharashtra batter had little trouble in working around them for singles or twos.
But the West had a few nervy moments soon as they lost Aarya (39), Shreyas (25) and Shams Mulani (18) in rather quick succession to be placed first at 137 for 4 and then at 179 for five.
Iyer, who was dropped on the first ball by Ahmed at deep off Harsh Dubey, looked in fine fettle but an attempt to play a late cut off Ahmed saw the ball disturbing the stumps after taking a light under edge of his bat.
The on-field umpires checked for no-ball as Iyer waited in hope but it lasted only a couple of minutes as the TV umpire ruled the ball fair.
Gaikwad needed a strong-willed partner from there, and Kotian was just that. No stranger to late order fightback, the Mumbaikar gave solid support to his senior partner as they milked 148 runs for the sixth wicket that pushed the Central completely on to the back foot. Once he reached the hundred, Gaikwad was in cruise mode moving to 150 in 178 balls (third fifty in 47 balls) as Central bowlers ran out of ideas.
Just as he was nearing his maiden first-class double hundred, Gaikwad showed a surprising moment of impatience to get stumped.
He shimmied out of crease to push spinner Jain to covers but was beaten in flight and stumper Upendra Yadav did the rest.
But by then West had reached a position that looked so unlikely a couple of hours ago, and Kotian in the company of his skipper Thakur saw off the rest of the day.
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