Karn Sharma spins India Red to big win in Duleep Trophy
LUCKNOW: Leg spinner Karn Sharma ended with a career-best 10-wicket haul to lead India Red to a 170-run win over India Green despite a valiant hundred from Karun Nair on day four of the Duleep Trophy here.
India Green, resuming the day at 98 for two and chasing an improbable 474-run target, were dismissed for 303 in their second innings with Sharma taking six for 94 to take his match tally to 10 for 133, his best figures in first class cricket.
The remaining four wickets in the Indian Green innings were taken by pacer Siddarth Kaul. The impressive bowling performance from India Red came a day after captain Dinesh Karthik and Priyank Kirit Panchal slammed centuries to put their team in a strong position.
India Red declared their second innings at 307 for two on Saturday. They had made 323 in their first innings before India Green responded with a paltry 157.
On the fourth and final day, India Green did put up a much improved showing with the bat but it was not enough to get even close to the victory target.
Nair was their stand out batsman with 120 off 203 balls but his dismissal ended India Green’s resistance.
The Karnataka batsman, who did not have the best of times during the recent India A tour of South Africa, was dogged in his approach.agencies MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has promised that Russia will do everything possible to prepare in an efficient and timely manner for hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
“Everything is going on schedule, everything is financed properly,” Putin said on Saturday at a meeting with world football’s governing body FIFA President Gianni Infantino, reports Tass .
“Russia will exert every effort to fulfil everything in an efficient and timely manner,” he added. “I am hopeful that your specialists who oversee the work will go on with it and we together will carry preparations for the World Cup through to the expected finish.”
Prior to the meeting, Putin and Infantino inspected the renovated Luzhniki stadium and watched young footballers’ training sessions. The Russian President drew the FIFA head’s attention to how Russian “young athletes and would-be champions” perceive the preparations for the World Cup.
“You were absolutely right saying that the Cup has some magic significance, some magic capacity,” Putin told Infantino.
The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between June 14 and July 15 at 12 stadiums located in 11 cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in Moscow. Eleven cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.