Maharashtra 110 for 1 (Gugale 56*) trail Tamil Nadu 549 (Karthik 113, Shankar 91, Prasanna 72, Indrajith 69, Rangarajan 67*, Sanklecha 3-115) by 439 runs
Scorecard

Maharashtra replied in solid fashion after Tamil Nadu amassed 549 in their first innings on the third day at Eden Gardens. Swapnil Gugale and Chirag Khurana steadied the proceedings with an unbroken 90-run stand after losing Harshad Khadiwale in the sixth over. Runs came at a fair clip - in contrast to Tamil Nadu's relatively slow batting - with Maharashtra scoring at 3.43 per over.

Tamil Nadu found wickets just as elusive as their counterparts did on the first two days, but their lower order made handsome contributions to take the score well past 500.

After Anupam Sanklecha struck twice to remove overnight batsmen B Indrajith, who exited in the fifth over of the day, and R Prasanna, the score read 444 for 7. Malolan Rangarajan , then, added 57 runs in the company of Aswin Crist, and after his departure, put on 37 runs with Balaji. None of Maharashtra's frontline bowlers conceded more than three an over.

Tamil Nadu captain Abhinav Mukund admitted his team hadn't bowled as well as they would have liked. "We gave away more loose balls than in the last game," he told ESPNcricinfo. "I gave attacking fields to the bowlers, and you are bound to go for runs if you attack a lot, and their batsmen played well, too.

"Most of Maharashtra's batsmen are stroke-makers, and if we keep pegging away in the first couple of hours tomorrow, we can pick up a few wickets. The pitch looked quite flat today, but there is bound to be some wear and tear, and it will hopefully get slower. It's going to be an interesting game."

Gugale, for his part, said Maharashtra had a "simple plan" for tomorrow, that of losing no more than two or three wickets in the day, and scoring 270-odd runs. "There is no scope of an outright result in this game. The wicket is favourable to batsmen, but is slower and lower. It's very humid, and we fielded for almost eight sessions. t's a big total, so it's dicey to tell exactly what we will need to do. We managed to not lose many wickets today, and we will continue to try and do the same tomorrow."