Skittled out for a paltry 77 on the opening day, Maharashtra fought back with some solid batting in their second innings against Orissa on the second day of the Ranji Trophy Plate Division match at the Barabati stadium in Cuttack on Tuesday.

They first dismissed Orissa for 204 and then amassed a comfortable 161 for 2 in their second knock by stumps.

At close, opener Dhiraj Jadhav was batting 81 (11 fours) and Kaushik Aphale on 17.

Orissa, who were strongly placed on Monday evening at 160 for 4, suffered an early setback on resumption when Rashmi Ranjan Parida was run out by wicketkeeper Satyajit Satbhai without adding anything to his overnight score of 81.

Visiting medium pacers Iqbal Siddiqui and Ranjeet Khirid then exploited the early morning conditions -- as done by the Orissa pacers yesterday -- to scalp the last six wickets for the addition of only 44 runs.

Siddiqui returned fine figures of five for 65 while Khirid captured four for 51 as Orissisa's lead was restricted to 127 runs.

Besides Parida, all-rounder Niranjan Behera was the other Orissa batsman who offered some resistance to the Maharashtra bowling by remaining not out on 62 (8 fours).

In Maharastra's  second innings, Jadhav and Niranjan Godbole notched 78 runs for the opening wicket before off-spinner Sanjay Satpathy had him caught by Sanjay Raul for 39 (five boundaries).

Skipper Hrishikesh Kanitkar did not last long as he snicked a Debashis Mohanty delivery to keeper Sukhwinder Singh after making just 11.

Scoreboard

Maharashtra (1st innings): 77

Orissa (1st innings): (overnight 160 for four)
BBCC Mahapatra c C Kulkarni b R Khirid 0
Subrat Behera lbw I Siddiqui 2
Rashmi Ranjan Parida run out 81
Sanjay Raul lbw I Siddiqui 1
Prabhanjan Mallik lbw R Khirid 20
Niranjan Behera not out 62
Sukhwinder Singh b I Siddiqui 0
Sanjay Satpathy c S Satbhai b I Siddiqui 1
Bipin Singh c S Satbhai b R Khirid 1
Debashis Mohanty c S Satbhai b R Khirid 8
Srikanta Jena c S Satbhai b I Siddiqui 2

Extras: (b-4, lb-5, nb-17) 26

Total: (all out in 74.2 overs) 204

Fall of wickets: 1-3, 2-6, 3-16, 4-49, 5-162,  6-168,  7-170, 8-171, 9-185.

Bowling: Iqbal Siddiqui 20.2-4-65-5, Ranjeet Khirid 23-6-51-4, Charu Kulkarni 8-1-29-0, Kiran Adhav 12-4-22-0, Kashinath Khadkikar 7-2-12-0, Hrishikesh Kanitkar 4-1-16-0.

Maharashtra (2nd innings):
Dhiraj Jadhav batting 81
Niranjan Godbole c S Raul b S Satpathy 39
Hrishikesh Kanitkar c S Singh b D Mohanty 11
Kaushik Aphale batting 17

Extras: (b-3, lb-2, nb-5, w-3) 13

Total: (for 2 wkts in 63 overs) 161

Fall of wickets: 1-78,  2-101

Bowling: Debashis Mohanty 13-2-34-1, Bipin Singh 14-4-33-0, Sanjay Satpathy 14-3-34-1, Pravanjan Mullick 11-0-35-0, Srikanta Jena 8-3-11-0, Sanjay Raul 3-0-9-0.