In a remarkable display of stonewalling, Railways thwarted Madhya Pradesh's hopes of an outright victory by batting right through the last day of their Central Zone Ranji Trophy match at the Maharani Usha Raje ground in Indore on Sunday. In an entire day's play comprising 104 overs, they scored just 83 runs losing five wickets in the process to finish at 86 for five off 109 overs when stumps were drawn.

MP, which opened the attack with the right arm off breaks of Rajesh Chauhan and the slow left arm orthodox of Sunil Lahore on the third evening when Railways had followed on 322 runs behind pressed into service three more spinners in Manish Majithia (slow left arm orthodox), Narendra Hirwani (right arm leg break and googly) and Abbas Ali (right arm off break). But the five man spin attack could only prise the door half open.

Some of the statistics associated with the Railways batsmen make for astonishing reading. PS Rawat, the captain, played 110 balls for two runs. Y Gowd, who came in at No 4, played 181 balls for 13 runs. Opening batsman Sanjay Bangar for the top score of 39 played 208 balls. But easily the most amazing statistic was associated with Majithia, the MP spinner. He sent down 20 overs without conceding a run, picked up the wicket of Gowd and in the process finished with the amazing analysis of 20-20-0-1.

The 83 runs that Railways scored in an entire day constituted a world record for the least number of runs made in a day's uninterrupted play. The previous record was 95 by Australia (80 all out) and Pakistan (15 for two) in their one off Test match at Karachi in 1956.

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