Group A leaders Tata Sports Club and second-placed Elf Lubricants were on course against their respective opponents.

Among the day's heroes was former Test player Balwinder Singh Sandhu, whose off-breaks fetched him four wickets and was largely instrumental in Central Railway being bowled out for 229. RCF, who had posted 305 in their first innings, were fighting with their backs to the wall having lost three wickets for 45 at close. Central Railway medium-pacer Santosh Saxena did the damage claiming all three wickets.

Tatas' Nishit Shetty and Sun-Grace's Shantanu Sugwekar were the other players who shared the day's honours, posting identical scores of 111.The 26-year-old Shetty's 111 (210b, 16x4) served Tataswell as they raked up 419 against Air-India at the MiG Club, Bandra. The southpaw was involved in a 153-run stand for the fourth wicket with skipper Lalchand Rajput (86: 153b, 10x4), who added just two runs to his overnight score before being run-out to a direct hit by substitute Premal Rachh from the deep.

Shetty also raised 70 runs for the sixth wicket with all-rounder Sandeep Dahad (26: 62b, 2x4). New recruit Anand Yalvigi (28: 24b, 3x4, 1x6) used the long handle to good effect.

In reply, Air-India were served well by openers Kamal Chopra (37: 99b, 6x4, 1x6) and Vikram Damle (52: 120b, 7x4, 1x6) who put on 95 runs. At close, they were 139-2.

Maharashtra Ranji Trophy player Sugwekar's 111 (14x4) and his 158-run association with left-hander Amit Pagnis (batting 53) revived Sun-Grace after being rocked by Iqbal Siddiqui's post lunch spell at the Police Gymkhana ground. The Maharashtra medium-pacer sent back Milind Tamahane (30), Vinod Kambli (0) and Rajesh Pawar within a space of seven balls, all caughtby wicket-keeper Rajesh Gurav, to leave Sun-Grace in bad shape. However, Sugwekar and Pagnis ensured that the team ended the day on a much better score of 241-7.

Earlier, Mandar Phadke's hopes of reaching the double hundred were dashed by a direct hit from third man by Gaurang Chavan. Phadke just added two runs to his overnight score of 170, which included 22 boundaries and two sixes, as Indian Oil ended up with 343 on the board. The oilmen will still finish second behind Sun-Grace even if they take the lead. But the lead will be crucial for them should Central turn the tables on RCF in the other game.

At the Elf-Vengsarkar Academy ground, defending champions Elf Lubricants were 118-1 in reply to Western Railway's 346.

Brief Scores

Group A: Tata Sports Club India 411-9 decl (Nikhil Haldipur 51, Manoj Joglekar 53, Lalchand Rajput 86, Nishit Shetty 111; Faisal Shaikh 4-123) vs Air-India 139-2 (Kamal Chopra 37, Vikram Damle 52).

W Rly 346 (Anshu Jain 57, Nitin Surve 87, Kunal More 26, IrfanPathan 46; Abey Kuruvilla 3-60, Nilesh Kulkarni 2-80, Ojas Mehta 2-2) vs Elf Lubricants 118-1 (Maroof Khan batting 49, Hrishikesh Kanitkar batting 46).

Group B: RCF 305 (Sachin Kakdekar 56, Suhas Mayekar 86, Kaushik Aphale 39, Balwinder Singh Sandhu 39, Musavir Khote 26, Satyen Yadav 3-8) and 45-3 (Santosh Saxena 3-17) vs Central Railway 229 (Manish Bangera 42, Dinesh Panwar 53 n.o., Jay Dhuri 34; Balwinder Singh Sandhu 4-93, Rajesh Prabhudesai 4-54).

Indian Oil 343 (Mandar Phadke 172, Iqbal Siddiqui 37, Amit Dani 36, Ashish Saxena 33; Rajesh Pawar 3-97, Suru Nayak 2-60)) vs Sun-Grace Mafatlal 241-7 (Hrishikesh Shende 30, Shantanu Sugwekar 111, Amit Pagnis 53, Iqbal Siddiqui 4-54).

POINTS POSITION BEFORE THIS ROUND

Group A: Tata's 11; Elf 10, Air-India 6; Western Railway 5. Group B: Sun-Grace 16; Indian Oil 11; Central Rly 5, RCF 0.

Seven-wkt win for Kandivli

Kandivli beat Dr Ambedkar in the second-round of the Inter-Collegiate cricket championship, today.

Brief Scores -- Zone Isecond round: Dr Ambedkar 207 (Jay Chitroda 46, Kishan Raniya 6-50) lost to Kandivli 211-3 (Sudhakar Vast 95, Apurva Vakharia 75 n.o.); Byramjee 46 lost to Vasantdada Patil 48-1; RD National 165 (Jayesh 4-28) bt Tolani 77 (Amir 6-32, Ankush Nadkarni 4-24); Yerla Medical 63 lost to SK Somaiya 64-2.

Zone II (Thane & Raigad Dist) 3rd round: Pragati, Dombivli 244 (Jitendra 82; Vikrant 5-50, Manish 5-45) bt Manjunath, Dombivli 80; Modern, Vasai 100 (Ajit Parab 3-34) lost to Annasahab Vartak, Vasai 101-5 (Pramod 3-37); SR Karandikar, Dahanu 95 (Sunil 44 n.o.; Shantanu 4-26) lost to Vidyavardhini, Vasai 96-2 (Tushar 40 n.o.); Karjat Engineering 82 (Satyawan Nakhwa 6-21, Amit 3-21) lost to JSM Alibag 83-3; Dnyana Sadhana 172 (Nishikant Sawant 42, Imran Shaikh 5-52) bt Dandekar, Palyhar 105 (Bipin Rant 42, Kiran Kunte 3-6); Joshi Bedekar 142 lost to St Gansalo, Vasai 146-5 (Mehoy 46); ICL, Vashi 108 (Nilesh Chalke 5-13) lost to Arts and Commerce, Ambernath 111-7 (Rajul Mehatab 6-54); Arts, Sc. & Com., Karjat 127lost to Birla 129-6 (Naresh 4-58).

Maharashtra advance

Maharashtra circle entered the quarter-finals of the All-India Postal kabaddi tournament. They beat Rajasthan and Gujarat circles at the Bhartiya Krida Mandir, Wadala, today.

Trambak to meet Formidables in final

Trambak Rubber (Calcutta) will take on Formidables (Delhi) in the final of the Tolani Masters Bridge Championship, being conducted by the Mumbai Sports and Bridge Association at the Andheri Sports Complex.

In the semi-finals, while Trambak Rubber edged out ARAL 103-92 IMPs, Formidables got the better of India Blues 123-96.7 IMPs, snuffing out Mumbai's challenge from the tournament. The final, for the top prize of Rs 50,000, will be played over four sessions of 16 boards each.

ARAL, who were trailing Trambak Rubber by a whopping 35 IMPs after two sessions of the four session semi-final, staged a fine rearguard action, but their huge loss in the second session, plus penalty of 3 IMPs cost them dear. ARAL needed to win thelast session by 37 IMPs to win the match, but they only managed a 44-22 victory, thus falling short by 14 IMPs.

In the other semi-finals, fancied India Blues, led by Ashok Ruia, shone in patches, to win the second session, lose the third 20-27 and a close fourth 30-32. However, they never had the Delhi team in trouble.

RESULTS (SEMI-FINALS)

Trambak Rubber (Harishankar Bajoria, Kamal Roy, Subroto Saha, Chandrasekhar Majumdar, Samir Basak, SP Ghosh) 103 bt ARAL (VM Lal, R Bhiwandkar, R Kejriwal, P Kejriwal, KV Krishnamurthy, SK Iyengar) 89; Formidables (Kiran Nadar, B Satyanarayan, Rajeshwar Tiwari, Subhash Gupta, NK Gupta) 123 bt India Blues (Ashok Ruia, JM Shah, Jitu Solani, S Venkataraman, K Mukherjee) 91.67.