Medium pacer Zakir Hussain struck the first blow by removing opener Harvinder Singh Sodhi for 10 after Railways skipper Prahlad Rawat invited MP to bat first. The other opener, J P Yadav (46: 8x4, 1x6) and left-handed Amay Khurasia (48: 7x4) shared a stand of 83 for the second wicket to steady the innings. But once their stand was broken by Kartik, MP could not progress much further, despite a 31-run stand for the seventh wicket between Prashant Dwivedi (46: 6x4) Raza Ali (10).

Yadav was bowled by Kartik when the score was 93. At the same score, MP captain Chandrakant Pandit was caught by wicketkeeper Zufri off Kartik without opening his account.

After that the MP batsmen could not stabilise their innings and wickets kept falling at regular intervals. At lunch, MP were 109 for three with Khurasia on 42 and Diwedi on nine.

When the game resumed after the interval, Khurasia was run out by a direct throw from Javed Zaman with the total on 115. Abbas Ali joined Diwedi but could not stay for long as he was caught by Satendra Yadav at deep mid-wicket off Kartik when the total score was 136. He was followed by Bundela who was stumped off the very first ball.