[3] Narula made his Ranji Trophy debut for Baroda's senior side during the 1985–86 season,[4] and in his fourth and final match, against Saurashtra in January 1986, scored a maiden first-class century, an even 100 not out.
[5] Coming in seventh in the batting order, he put on 161 runs for the sixth wicket with Sanjay Hazare, which as of April 2015[update] remains a record for Baroda–Saurashtra matches.
[6] Narula scored another century, 105, in the following season's Ranji Trophy fixture against Saurashtra, and his 209-run fifth-wicket partnership with Tushar Arothe set another record for Baroda–Saurashtra matches.
He was Baroda's leading wicket-taker, with only Shaukat Dukanwala, a future United Arab Emirates ODI player, bowling more overs.
His most notable wicket in the final was that of future India captain Sourav Ganguly, who he had caught for 125, while his West Zone teammates had included Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Vinod Kambli.
[9] His most notable bowling performance during this time was 5/48 for West Zone in the final of the 1991–92 Duleep Trophy, though this was not enough to prevent his team losing the game by 236 runs.
[19] Although he averaged 40.00 for the season, his only score over 50 came in the Ranji quarter-final against Punjab, an innings of 131 from 343 balls that was made from eighth in the batting order and lasted almost seven hours.