Pujara 256* flattens India Red

India Red 16 for 2 (Dhawan 14*, Pankaj 2-12) trail India Blue 693 for 6 dec (Pujara 256*, Jackson 134, Gambhir 94) by 677 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

Having passed 700 in their last match, India Blue declared seven runs short of that mark in the Duleep Trophy final, with Cheteshwar Pujara scoring his tenth first-class double-hundred, before Pankaj Singh ripped into India Red’s top order with wickets off successive balls in his first over.

With just over ten days to go for India’s first Test against New Zealand, Pujara has made 166 and 256* in back-to-back first-class matches, suggesting a return to the insatiable ways of his best years. Pujara now has as many first-class double-hundreds as Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid; Vijay Merchant, with 11, is the only Indian batsman above him.

For the majority of the day, Pujara was kept company by his Saurashtra team-mates Sheldon Jackson and Ravindra Jadeja. After a shaky start, and with the benefit of three lives along the way, Jackson settled into some fine strokeplay to bring up his 11th first-class ton. His 134 featured 15 fours and two sixes as he shared a 243-run fifth-wicket stand with Pujara. Jackson’s dismissal brought Jadeja to the crease with the team’s total at 605. Jadeja scored a free-spirited 48 off 66, hitting three fours and two sixes to put the finishing touches on India Blue’s marathon innings.

But India Red’s misery did not end there. Bowling over the wicket to the left-handed batsmen, Pankaj got the ball to cut back in sharply, trapping Abhinav Mukund plumb in front and sneaking one between Sudip Chatterjee’s bat and pad to clip the top of middle. His hat-trick ball to Yuvraj Singh did a tad too much and Yuvraj …

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