Debutant seamer Wilkin Mota grabbed three wickets as Madhya Pradesh struggled to score 164 for 7 against reigning champions Mumbai on the opening day of their Elite Division Group A Ranji Trophy league match at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Mota, introduced only as the third change bowler by Mumbai's stand-in captain Vinod Kambli, grabbled the opportunity with both hands to finish with figures of 3 for 21 on a day, when pace spearhead Ajit Agarkar went wicketless in 22 overs.

Swapnil Hazare and another debutant, Santosh Shinde, who opened the bowling in the morning with Agarkar, picked two and one wickets respectively while Kambli took the other wicket to fall.

MP were shored up by the second-wicket stand of 50 runs between opener Naman Ojha (33) and captain Amay Khurasia, who batted for nearly three-and-a-half hours to compile a painstaking 38 off 143 balls, before suffering a post-lunch slump.

The visitors, who lost their first wicket at 29 after being inserted in, lost two wickets -- those of their two experienced batsmen, Devendra Bundela and Abbas Ali, who both failed to score - in the space of five balls and failed to recover from the twin blow.

They lost the two wickets against Mota and Shinde, and they slumped from 87 for 2 to 132 for six before Nikhil Patwardhan (34 not out) and Sunil Dholpure (7 in 64 minutes) put on 29 runs.

Mota, who opened with Agarkar when the second new ball was summoned, produced the breakthrough by dismissing Dholpure just before stumps.

Madhya Pradesh (1st innings):
Sachin M Dholpure lbw Mota 12
N V Ojha c Samant b Hazare 33
A R Khurasiya c Jaffer b Hazare 38
D Bundela c Muzumdar b Mota 0
S Abbas Ali lbw Shinde 0
N A Patwardhan not out 34
R Yengre c Muzumdar b Kambli 8
Sunil M Dholpure c Muzumdar b Mota 7
Shantanu Pitre not out 3

Extras: (b 4, lb 4, w 5, nb 16)  29

Total: (for 7 wickets, 90 overs) 164

To bat: S Pandey, YA Golwalkar.

Fall of wickets: 1-29, 2-79, 3-87, 4-88, 5-110, 6-131, 7-161.

Bowling: Agarkar 22-7-41-0 (5nb), Shinde 16-7-19-1 (7nb), Hazare 15-4-43-2 (5w), Kulkarni 21-9-29-0, Mota 11.1-5-21-3 (4nb), Kambli 4.5-2-3-1.