This time hosts bowlers fail, Karnataka begin on strong note
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh’s chief coach Mritunjay Tripathi had all praise for his bowlers on the eve of their season’s last Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka on Thursday. His words looked genuine as spinner Saurabh Kumar and seamer Ankit Rajpoot had 23 and 18 wickets in previous matches by then.
But within a few hours time, his faith on his bowlers looked broken as despite bowling full 90 overs on the opening day of the four-day Group A encounter on their home turf at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur, they could get just three wickets, thus leaving mighty Karnataka enjoying dominance against the former champions by scoring 327/3 in their first innings.
Dhruv Pratap Singh and Aksdeep Nath took two and one wickets each, whereas six others bowlers, including Saurabh and Ankit remained wicket-less. Dhruv had the wickets of opener Samarth R and Karun Nair, whereas Nath accounted for Mayank Agarwal.
In fact, it was a good toss to win for Karnataka as skipper R Vinay Kumar chose to bat first without fearing of any impact of early morning swing. He was proved right as openers Samarth R (16, 45b, 3x4) and Mayank Agarwal stitched together 66-run for the opening wicket. Mayank who struck 73-ball 90 with the help of 16 hits to the fence played nicely and added 55-run for the third wicket with Nischal D then.
Two wickets before lunch raised some hopes for Suresh Raina and Co, but Nischal and Karun Nair kept defying UP bowlers, hitting sparkling half centuries. Nair before being bowled by Dhruv made 62 in 123 balls with the help of eight fours, where as Nischal remained unbeaten for 90, which came off 221 balls and contained 13 boundaries.
Giving Nischal a company in the middle at close of stumps on Friday was Manish Pandey, who made 62 in 123 balls with the help of eight fours. So far, the two added unbeaten 91-run for the fourth wicket.
SCORECARD Karnataka (1st innings):
Samarth R ct U Yadav b DP Singh 16, M Agarwal c U Sharma b A Nath 90, Nischal D batting 90, K Nair b DP Singh 62, M Pandey batting 63. Extras (nb1, lb5) 6. Total (for 3 wkts; 90 overs) 327. Fall of wickets: 1-66, 2-121, 3-236. Bowling: A Rajpoot 21-280-0, I Ahmed 17-2-63-0, DP Singh 14-3-74-2, S Kumar 22-6-59-0, A Nath 11-1-27-1, M Saif 2-1-1-0, S Raina 2-0-8-0, R Singh 1-0-10-0.