The Uttar Pradesh batsmen built upon Ashish Winston Zaidi's dream spell to place themselves in a commanding position at stumps on the second day of their Central Zone Ranji Trophy league match against Vidarbha at Green Park in Kanpur on Wednesday.

On the opening day, Zaidi bowling unchanged, ripped through the Vidarbha batting to finish with nine for 45. Opening the bowling, Zaidi started the rot by taking a wicket with his second ball. There was little fight in the Vidarbha ranks thereafter but a 40 run stand for the third wicket between skipper MS Dosi (20) and AS Naidu (24). Zaidi finished with the excellent figures of 19.4-3-45-9 as Vidarbha were shot out for 98 in 38.4 overs.

When UP batted, opener Jyoti Yadav scored 46 but it was a third wicket partnership of 163 runs in 52.2 overs between Md Kaif and R Shamshad that placed Up in commmand. While Shamshad was out for 95 compiled off 165 balls with ten hits to the fence, Kaif went on to get 112. He faced 245 balls and hit 14 fours. Zaidi followed his dream spell with a bright 26 off 36 balls with five hits to the ropes late in the order. UP at stumps were 351 for eight.

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