Jaipur, Oct 2: Rest of India continued their domination over the Ranji Trophy champions on Day 2 of the Irani Cup match; they claimed three Rajasthan wickets on the day and were 610 runs ahead when stumps were called.

The ROI bowlers built on the good work of their batsman by getting some early breakthroughs in the Rajasthan innings. Umesh Yadav sent back opener Vineet Saxena (11 runs) to give ROI their first breakthrough in the tenth over. A few overs later, he claimed the key wicket of Rajasthan captain Hrishikesh Kanitkar (14 runs).

The day ended with ROI dismissing veteran opener Aakash Chopra; Chopra’s 107-minute stay in the middle for 20 runs was brought to an end by Pragyan Ojha. At close of play, Rajasthan were tottering at 53 runs for the loss three wickets in 22.2 overs with Robin Bist at the crease still to open his account.

Earlier, building on the overnight score of 400 for the loss of three wickets, ROI were all out for 663 runs with the lower-order also making significant contributions. Edging Aniket Choudhary to wicketkeeper Rohit Jhalani, skipper Parthiv Patel was the first to return to the dressing room without adding to his overnight score of 55 runs. Ajinkya Rahane, who was batting on 117 when stumps were called on Day 1, went on to score 152 runs before being sent back by Sumit Mathur.

Mandeep Singh, who had come in to bat at the fall of Patel’s wicket, was dismissed for 60 runs by Choudhary. The left-arm pacer from Rajasthan also removed Pragyan Ojha later and finished with a four-for.

Saxena then removed Vinay Kumar and Varun Aaron who had contributed 43 and 41 runs respectively. Rahul Sharma, who has been selected for the first two ODIs against England, scored a half-century and was the last ROI wicket to fall. Sharma’s 38-ball cameo ended while attempting a big hit off Mathur only to be caught at deep midwicket by Saxena.

While the ROI batsmen plundered Rajasthan’s bowling attack to post a mammoth first innings total, pacer Deepak Chahar, who was one of Rajasthan’s stars in their Ranji Trophy triumph, went wicketless in the innings.

Brief scores (At the end of Day 2): ROI 1st innings 663 all out in 153.4 overs (S Dhawan 177, A Rahane 152, A Choudhary 4/125, S Mathur 3/129) Rajasthan 1st innings 53/3 in 22.2 overs (A Chopra 20, U Yadav 2/ 22)