“It was one of my important innings as it was scored against a premier bowling attack,” said Kukreja, whose innings had 17 fours. With Kukreja holding one end up, Nayar smashed most of the bowlers around the park — he had 20 fours and a six in his 108-ball innings.

With national selectors deciding to go for left-arm spinner Murali Kartik and dropping Ramesh Powar for the remaining two one-dayers against Australia, the off-spinner flew into Rajkot this morning to join Mumbai.

SCOREBOARD

Mumbai Ist innings: Sahil Kukreja run out 110, Ajinkya Rahane lbw Bose 52, Wasim Jaffer c Kaif b Bose 8, Amol Muzumdar lbw Ojha 8, Prashant Naik lbw Sharma 12, Abhishek Nair c Sharma b Ojha 118, Ramesh Powar not out 28, Ajit Agarkar c Raina b Bose 4, Omkar Guruv c Patel b Sharma 0, Iqbal Abdullah not out 16

Extras (b2, lb8, nb16, w3): 29, Total (for 8 wkts, 86 overs): 385

Fall of wickets: 1-91, 2-109, 3-150, 4-165, 5-336, 6-338, 7-342, 8-359

Bowling: Munaf Patel 15.5-0-71-0, Ranadeb Bose 22.1-4-88-3, Ishant Sharma 17-4-58-2, Pragyan Ojha 18-0-96-2, Amit Mishra 8-0-42-0, S Badrinath 5-0-20-0