Delhi's hopes of taking the first-innings lead looked slim with Hyderabad reducing the visitors to 245 for six in an Elite Group B Ranji Trophy match here Thursday.
At stumps on the third and penultimate day, Delhi trailed the hosts by 215 runs with four lower-order batsmen to follow.
Hyderabad notched up 460 in their first innings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
Hiten Dalal was the day's top-scorer with 93 off 180 balls while Nitish Rana, in his maiden season as Delhi skipper, contributed 82 off 179 deliveries.
While Dalal found the fence 14 times and cleared it once, Rana struck nine boundaries and a six.
Resuming the day on overnight 21 for no loss, Delhi suffered their first blow when debutant Sarthak Ranjan was bowled by centurion T Ravi Teja with the visitors two short of 50 at the end of the 15th over. Ranjan made 20 off 66 balls.
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Vice-captain Dhruv Shorey fell cheaply for nine, but after that Delhi looked solid with the duo of Dalal and Rana adding 114 runs for the third wicket.
Slow left-arm spinner Tanay Thyagarajan, who finished the day with 3/41 in 21 overs, was quite impressive for a debutant and gave Hyderabad the much-needed breakthrough when he bowled Dalal.
Himmat Singh came and perished quickly and Rana, too, fell after sometime to leave Delhi in a spot of bother by the close of play.