Mohanty also emerged as the most successful bowler of the match with nine wickets for 119 runs, including six for 39 in the second innings. In the process, he became the second Odisha bowler after Debasis Mohanty to complete 250 wickets in first-class cricket.

The match was hit hard by inclement weather for the first two days. Steady drizzle and insufficient light interrupted the proceedings for more than two hours between lunch and tea on the opening day. Play also started 45 minutes late and ended before scheduled time, reducing action of day to 48.2 overs. Occasional drizzle and bad light restricted play to 66.4 overs on the second day.

Put into bat on a bouncy pitch of KIIT Stadium, which became the 17th venue of Odisha to stage a Ranji match, Delhi struggled for runs against a disciplined Odisha pace attack. Though they compiled a respectable total of 311, but for that they had to bat for more than two days.

Suryakant Pradhan was most successful Odisha bowler with a haul of four for 119. His senior teammates Mohanty and Deepak Behera claimed three wickets apiece. But Odisha batsmen frittered away the all the good work of their pace trio by making meek surrender in the first innings.

Afer reaching 195 for four, thanks to a half-century each by Natraj Behera and Anurag Sarangi, they folded up for 217, losing their remaining six wickets for 21 runs. Experienced opener Behera returned to form with an aggressive knock of 62 (92b, 12x4). This was his 10th first-class fifty and he completed 2,500 runs in the process.

Taking the first-innings lead was like winning half of the battle and a fired-up Delhi made an audacious attempt to convert the advantage into an outright victory by starting their second innings on a whirlwind note. A half-century each by top three batsmen _ Dhruv Shorey, captain Gautam Gambhir and Nitish Rana _ enabled them to gallop to 173 for three before declaring at 193 for nine, losing six wickets in space of 20 runs.

Set with an unachievable target of 288, Odisha reached 88 for three before both the captains agreed to sign the peace treaty. The three points against Odisha enabled Delhi maintain their place at the top of the group table with 18 points from five matches.

After a break in the sixth round, they will take on Assam at Guwahati from Nov 15 to 18. On the other hand, Odisha slipped slumped sixth to seventh place with nine points from four matches. They will next meet Karnataka at Bangalore from Nov 7 to 10.
SCOREBOARD
DELHI (1st innings): Dhruv Shorey b Mohanty 42, Gautam Gambhir b Pradhan 41, Nitish Rana c Dhuper b Behera 37, Milind Kumar c Dhuper b Pradhan 59, Vaibhav Rawal c D Singh b Pradhan 19, Punit Bisht lbw Mohanty 9, Manan Sharma c Dhuper b Pradhan 0, Pradeep Sangwan c Samantaray b Behera 30, Subodh Bhati c Natraj b Mohanty 5, Pulkit Narang (not out) 41, Navdeep Amarjeet Saini c Dhuper b Behera 10; Extras (b 10, lb 7, nb 1) 18
Total (All out; 136.1 overs) 311
Fall of wickets: 1-74 (Shorey, 39.4 ov), 2-116 (Gambhir, 54.5 ov), 3-132 (Rana, 63.3 ov), 4-197 (Rawal, 100.3 ov), 5-212 (Bisht, 103.3 ov), 6-213 (Sharma, 104.6 ov), 7-230 (Milind, 112.1 ov), 8-245 (Bhati, 115.4 ov), 9-281 (Sangwan, 130.3 ov), 10-311 (Saini, 136.1 ov)
Bowling: Basant Mohanty 39-10-80-3, Suryakant Pradhan 40.5-12-119-4, Deepak Behera 34.1-17-46-3, Dhiraj Singh 9-2-32-0, Biplab Samantaray 13.1-3-17-0
ODISHA (1st innings): Rajesh Dhuper c Bisht b Sangwan 14, Natraj Behera b Narang 62, Govinda Poddar c Narang b Sangwan 3, Anurag Sarangi c Bisht b Sangwan 76, Biplab Samantaray c Shorey b Bhati 11, Pratik Das lbw Sangwan 16, Abhilash Mallick c Bisht b Saini 0, Deepak Behera c Rana b Sangwan 11, Suryakant Pradhan c M Sharma b Sangwan 7, Basant Mohanty (not out) 3, Dhiraj Singh lbw Sangwan 0; Extras (b 9, lb 1, w 1, nb 3) 14
Total (All out; 75.5 overs) 217
Fall of wickets: 1-36 (Dhuper, 9.3 ov), 2-40 (Poddar, 13.1 ov), 3-117 (Natraj, 38.1 ov), 4-140 (Samantaray, 47.5 ov), 5-195 (Sarangi, 67.4 ov), 6-196 (Mallick, 68.3 ov), 7-196 (Das, 69.2 ov), 8-214 (Pradhan, 73.2 ov), 9-217 (Behera, 75.4 ov), 10-217 (Dhiraj, 75.5 ov)
Bowling: Subodh Bhati 18-6-41-1, Navdeep Saini 19-3-65-1, Manan Sharma 9-2-29-0, Pradeep Sangwan 18.5-7-38-7, Pulkit Narang 11-0-34-1
DELHI (2nd innings): D Shorey (run out) 62, G Gambhir c P Das b D Singh 54, N Rana c N Behera b D Singh 52, M Kumar lbw Mohanty 0, V Rawal b Mohanty 5, P Bisht c Dhuper b Mohanty 5, P Sangwan c Poddar b Mohanty 3, S Bhati b Mohanty 0, P Narang lbw Mohanty 0, M Sharma (not out) 6; Extras (b 4, lb 2) 6
Total (9 wkts decl; 31.3 overs) 193
Fall of wickets: 1-78 (Gambhir, 13.1 ov), 2-158 (Shorey, 23.3 ov), 3-159 (Milind, 23.6), 4-173 (Rana, 26.4 ov), 5-179 (Rawal, 27.5 ov), 6-186 (Bisht, 29.1 ov), 7-186 (Bhati, 29.2 ov), 8-186 (Narang, 29.3 ov), 9-193 (Sangwan, 31.3)
Bowling: S Pradhan 5-1-36-0, D Behera 3-0-22-0, B Mohanty 9.3-0-39-6, Dhiraj Singh 12-0-62-2, Govinda Poddar 2-0-28-0
ODISHA (2nd innings): N Behera , R Dhuper lbw Bhati 26, G Poddar b Narang 8, A Sarangi (not out) 6, B Samantaray (not out) 12; Extras (b 1) 1
Total (3 wkts; 38 overs) 88
Fall of wickets: 1-48 (Dhuper, 13.1 overs), 2-69 (Poddar, 18.2 ov), 3-72 (Behera, 20.2 ov)
Bowling: M Sharma 3-1-11-0, P Sangwan 10-4-13-0, N Saini 7-1-24-0, P Narang 13-4-29-2, S Bhati 5-2-10-1
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TOP: Odisha bowler Basant Mohanty shows the ball after taking a hat-trick on Nov 2, 2015.
RIGHT: Half-century makers Natraj Behera (Left) and Anurag Sarangi in Bhubaneswar on Nov 1, 2015.