A sparkling unbeaten century by Niraj Patel helped hosts Gujarat reach 201 for two on the first day of the Elite 'A' Ranji Trophy cricket match against Railways at the Motera stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

Though opener Modi gave the team a brisk start and scored a fine 72, the other opener, Akash Christian, could not maintain the tempo and was back in the pavilion after being trapped leg before to Railways seamer J P Yadav.

Christian's poor showing was, however, compensated when Patel, a south paw, scored 107 not out with 16 hits to the fence, during his 331 minutes.

He and Modi added 187 runs.

The pitch did not offer any assistance to the Railways bowlers; except for Harvinder and Yadav, who took a wicket each, none of them bothered any of the batsmen.

At the end of the day, Niraj Patel and Siddharth Trivedi, who is yet to open his account, were at the crease.

Hosts Gujarat are in peak form with victories over Bengal and Karnataka recently just before they drew with a formidable Delhi.

They have six points while Railways, captained by Sanjay Bangar, have only two.

Scorecard

Gujarat (1st innings):
N Modi lbw Harvinder Singh 72
A Christian lbw Yadav 8
N Patel not out 107
S Trivedi not out 0

Extras (lb 7, w 1, nb 6) 14

Total (for 2 wickets in 91 overs) 201

Still to bat: B Thaker, K Damani, P Patel, T Patel, M Parmar,  H Majmudar, L Patel

Fall of wickets: 14-1, 201-2

Bowling: Harvinder Singh 18.4-3-35-1, J P Yadav 17-8-31-1, S Khanolkar 11-1-32-0, S Bangar 12.2-5-31-0, K Parida 23-9-42-0, G Shankara Rao 9-1-23-0.