On a pitch that was more heart-breaking for the bowlers, paceman R Vinay Kumar ploughed a lone furrow to return his second five-wicket haul in an innings this season. The effort also helped Karnataka finally skittle Delhi for a mammoth 538 in their Ranji Super League Ranji Group ‘A’ clash here at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday.

Karnataka were yet to open their account after facing just one ball when bad light forced the stoppage for the second time on the day before the umpires decided to call off the proceedings. Close to 50 minutes had been lost when badlight had stopped play in the morning. The second interruption ensured that only 274 minutes of action was possible on the day.    

Much like the dreary weather throughout the day, Karnataka’s fortunes too remained unchanged for the second successive day.

The hosts did well to pick overnight centurion Virat Kohli (169, 370m, 311b, 24x4, 1x6) before the India under-19 captain could cause further damage. The right-hander nicked Vinay to Thilak Naidu behind the wicket, as an entertaining 75-run association for the third wicket came to an end.

After a while Vinay earned another reward for his hard work when he accounted for Rajat Bhatia, cleaning him up with an off-cutter.  This exactly —  thinking the batsmen out — was what Karnataka bowlers needed to do on the opening day. With no encouragement from the pitch, there was little margin for error for the bowlers.

No support

While Vinay did all the right things to create pressure on the visitors by dismissing two batsmen, there was no other bowler to sustain it.

His new-ball partner S Dhananjaya, playing his first match of the season, was guilty of offering too much width to the batsmen. Largely unimpressive in his seven-over spell — that cost 30 runs — and Yere Goud deciding not to bring the Mysore bowler back into attack, it was one-man pace attack with two left-arm spinners — Sunil Joshi and KP Appanna — for support.

As a result, Delhi were able to get out of the tight corner with skipper Mithun Manhas leading the charge. Manhas resumed from where he had left on Monday. With wickets hard to come by, Karnataka spinners resorted to negative line bowling from over the wicket to stop the flow of runs. But the move had little effect on the batsmen with Manhas particularly subjecting Appanna to some severe punishment. The pocket-sized batsman, in the company of an attacking Mayank Tehlan, realised 96 runs for the fifth wicket as Delhi inched towards 500 mark.

In the meanwhile, Manhas (124, 188b, 20x4, 1x6) reached his second century of the season in style, depositing Appanna over sight screen. The right-hander was the third centurion of the innings, after Shikhar Dhawan and Kohli.

Returning for his second spell of the day, that stretched for almost 18 overs and split between post lunch and last two sessions, Vinay had Tehlan (41, 126b, 7x4) caught behind. Vinay then castled a well-set Manhas with a delivery the shaped away from the batsman. All through the day Vinay had bowled with little support from the other end.

This time, though, he was not to be disappointed. Joshi eventually got into act, making the most of the pressure exerted by Vinay.

The veteran bowler claimed the wickets of Puneet Bisht and Chaitanya Nanda in the space of three deliveries, while Vinay put a fullstop to Delhi innings trapping Parvinder Awana in front for his fifth victim. Vinay, who had reached 100-wicket mark in first-class cricket in Mysore against Saurashtra, joined the 100-wicket club in Ranji Trophy.