Mumbai remains on top in their home encounter versus Baroda in the ongoing Ranji Trophy despite a fighting half-century from Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya who followed his magnificent bowling performance with an astounding effort with the bat.

Pandya struck an attacking 73 in 137 balls with 9 fours and one six and helped the visitors reach near hosts' first innings total of 465.

Arriving with Baroda 307/3, the all-rounder eventually ran out of partners through his knock despite which Mumbai achieved a vital 29-run lead in the Elite group A game on Sunday, December 16.

The 25-year-old Pandya came back with a two-wicket burst inflicting danger over Mumbai at 20 for 2 on close of play, with an overall lead of 49.

Earlier, Baroda started off the day on a solid 244 for 1 with Waghmode and Solanki batting on 87 and 128 respectively.

Solanki finally got out on the first ball of the 11th over of the morning for 133 to left-arm medium pacer Royston Dias after Waghmode, who was dismissed for 114, reached his three-figure mark.

A mini-collapse followed but then a 44-run stand between Shivalik Sharma (51) and Hardik Pandya himself helped Baroda reach 379/7.

Hardik then got another able partner in Bhargav Bhatt, who had taken four wickets with his left arm spin on Saturday, as the duo took their team within 33 runs behind Mumbai, as Baroda got eventually bowled out for a highly respectable total of 436.

With his five-fer and a 73 with the bat, Hardik proved that he is well and truly recovered from that hamstring injury and could possibly be travelling to Australia for the last two Tests in Melbourne and Sydney.

(Inputs from PTI)