Faced with a must-win situation for a quarter-final berth, Karnataka were interestingly placed at 61/1, chasing 293 at the end of third day against Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy clash in Pune on Thu
Faced with a must-win situation for a quarter-final berth, Karnataka were interestingly placed at 61/1, chasing 293 at the end of third day against Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy clash in Pune on Thursday.
Going into the final day, the defending champions Karnataka require another 232 runs to seal their last eight spot. Opener Mayank Agarwal (23 batting) and Robin Uthappa (25 batting) were in the middle with an unbroken second wicket 39-run partnership when stumps were drawn.
Karnataka suffered a jolt as Nikit Dhumal struck early on to dislodge opener R. Samarth’s (7) stumps.Earlier, the hosts resuming at 70/4 at the MCA stadium, managed to stretch it to 260 as middle-order batsman Rahul Tripathi (81, 196b, 12x4) and Swapnil Mundhe (81, 150b, 7x4, 2x6) came up with defiant knocks that swelled the lead to 293 in the second innings.
Karnataka skipper and spearhead R. Vinay Kumar claimed four wickets, fellow seamer Sreenath Arvind grabbed three while leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal took two.
Tripathi and stand-in captain Kedar Jadhav added 34 runs for the fifth wicket. Vishant More (25) joined the free-flowing Tripathi to garner another important 40 runs that thwarted the visitors.
Following More’s departure, Mundhe and Tripathi came up with an aggressive partnership for the seventh wicket that changed the course of the game. The duo went on to stitch a vital 96 runs off 126 balls at a good rate to piled misery on Karnataka bowlers.
Maharashtra had enough on the board to put pressure on Karnataka on the final day.
Scoreboard Maharashtra (I innings): 212 Karnataka (I innings): 180 Maharashtra (II innings, O/n 70/4): Rahul Tripathi c Pandey b Arvind 78, Kedar Jadhav lbw b Vinay 11, Vishant More c Gautam b Sharath 26, Swapnil Mundhe b Gopal 81, Bharatkumar Solanki lbw b Gopal 1, Nikit Dhumal c Agarwal b Vinay 5, Anupam Sanklecha (not out) 3 Extras: (b16, lb4, wd2, nb12) 34 Total: (in 93 overs) 260 FoW: 5-73, 6-113, 7-209, 8-237, 9-252 Bowling: Vinay 27-5-71-4, Mithun 18-4-48-0, Arvind 24-4-59-3, Sharath 13-3-36-1, Gopal 10-3-26-2, Nair 1-1-0-0 Karnataka (IInd innings, Target: 293): R. Samarth b Dhumal 7, Mayank Agarwal (batting) 23, Robin Uthappa (batting) 25 Extras: (lb1, wd5) 6 Total: (for 1 wkt, in 15 overs) 61 FoW: 1-22 Bowling: Sanklecha 3-0-13-0, Dhumal 6-1-34-1, Tripathi 2-1-5-0, Gugale 4-2-8-0
