The toss apart, precious little else went right for Karnataka at the Wankhede stadium on a hot and furiously humid Saturday. Blame it on season-opening nerves or the sluggish nature of the playing surface, their batsmen never looked the part as Mumbai made a stirring start to the defence of their Ranji Trophy title.

At the close of an absorbing, attritional day dominated entirely by Ramesh Powar (5/69) and -- by extension -- the ball, Karnataka limped to 189 for nine on day one of their four-day Super League Group ‘A’ contest, held together by the determination of B Akhil (53 n.o., 140m, 119b, 7x4) after the class of Rahul Dravid had threatened, briefly, to provide the ideal platform.

Dravid strode out in the first over with not a run on the board after Ajit Agarkar forced Barrington Rowand to edge to Vinayak Samant -- the first of five victims for the experienced Mumbai stumper -- upon Anil Kumble opting to bat first. For the next two and a quarter hours, the former Indian captain was in his elements, defending with exaggeratedly studious care as well as putting the loose ball away with characteristic elan.

Odd moments
There were the inevitable odd moments of uncertainty early on, with the ball new and the surface fresh; for the most part, though, the 34-year-old was in total command of himself and the situation. Booked in for bed and breakfast, one thought, when Powar deigned otherwise.

While Dravid might not have felt the need to prove a point to anyone after being dropped from the one-day squad, Powar most certainly had to. Having gone to England as the primary one-day spinner, the stocky offie lost that status to Harbhajan Singh, then eventually lost his place in the limited-overs scheme of things altogether. With selection panel chairman Dilip Vengsarkar in attendance, this was as good an opportunity as any to prove his worth. Grabbing the chance with both hands, Powar troubled all batsmen with variations in pace, flight and turn, procuring appreciable turn and bounce when he flighted the ball, and totally flummoxing the batsmen when he got the ball to hold its line and hasten off the track.

The Dravid-Powar battle was one of the high points of the day. Having sussed up the conditions, Dravid set about dismantling the Powar threat, either using his feet to skip down the track or the depth of the crease to rock on to the back foot and play powerfully through the off-side. Despite the loss of opener KB Pawan, also snaffled by the impressive Agarkar who was exceptional during a hostile first spell of 8-3-9-2, Karnataka were just in the process of wresting the initiative when Powar struck a telling blow.
A superbly flighted delivery dipped, turned and bounced, looping to Mumbai skipper Amol Muzumdar at backward short-leg off the top of Dravid's newly weighted bat. A burgeoning third-wicket association of 49 (85m, 130b) with C Raghu for the third wicket was terminated ten minutes before lunch, and Mumbai were swinging again.

Biggest obstacle
Their biggest obstacle out of the way, Mumbai moved in for the kill, and Yere Goud left the door open when he danced down the track, was totally done in the air and smartly stumped by Samant down leg, some 15 minutes after lunch.

Through that period, Raghu battled away, much like Thilak Naidu and Akhil did after him, until a near three-hour vigil ended tamely with a poke at Abhishek Nair. Naidu and Akhil tried to redress the balance with enterprise. There were some stunning strokes from the former that mocked the slowness of the track, while Akhil was sensible enough to play the support act without getting bogged down. 48 (70m, 115b) had come for the sixth when Naidu perished not unlike Raghu.

From there, the resistance was restricted to Akhil. The tall right-hander played his part with aplomb even as his mates deserted him with the regularity of falling autumn leaves. Powar ended the day with five; Karnataka will need a similar effort on the morrow if they are to wend their way back.

SCORE BOARD

KARNATAKA (I Innings): Barrington Rowland c Samant b Agarkar 0 (2m, 4b), KB Pawan c Rahane b Agarkar 11 (54m, 37b, 2x4), Rahul Dravid c Muzumdar b Powar 40 (137m, 97b, 4x4), Raghu c Samant b Nair 31 (166m, 138b, 4x4), Yere Goud st Samant b Powar 5 (21m, 16b, 1x4), Thilak Naidu c Samant b Verma 33 (127m,93b, 4x4), B Akhil (batting) 53 (140m, 119b, 7x4), Sunil Joshi lbw Powar 6 (24m, 18b, 1x4), Anil Kumble c Rahane b Powar 0 (8m, 6b), R Vinay Kumar c Samant b Powar 4 (18m, 14b, 1x4), NC Aiyappa (batting) 1 (16m, 5b). Extras (LB-2, NB-3) 5. Total (for 9 wkts, 91 overs) 189.
Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Rowland), 2-23 (Pawan), 3-72 (Dravid), 4-78 (Goud), 5-97 (Raghu), 6-145 (Naidu), 7-164 (Joshi), 8-166 (Kumble), 9-172 (Vinay).
Bowling: Ajit Agarkar 14-3-24-2 (nb-1), Rajesh Verma 19-6-38-1 (nb-1), Ramesh Powar 29-7-69-5 (nb-1), Abhishek Nair 12-4-17-1, Iqbal Abdulla 17-4-39-0. 



OTHER RANJI TROPHY SUPER LEAGUE AND PLATE SCORE

Group ‘A’: Maharashtra: 261/4 in 86.4 overs (Harshand  Khadiwale 126, Vishant More 26, Kedar Jadav 35, Yogesh Takawale 52 batting; R Aswin 2-81) vs Tamil Nadu.

Saurashtra: 262/6 in 90 overs (SD Jogiyani 32, KM Vaghela 40, SH Kotak 38, C Pujara 64; AK Thakur 3-62, Sarandeep Singh 2-67) vs Himachal Pradesh.

Group ‘B’: Orissa: 216 all out in 64 overs (SS Das 75, P Jayachandra 55, DS Mohanty 27; S Tyagi 6-46, SS Shukla 2-16) vs Uttar Pradesh: 84/3 in 26 overs (SS Shukla 35 batting, Suresh Raina 27 batting).

Andhra: 294/6 in 90 overs (H Watekar 137, MSK Prasad 51, B Sumanth 35; Gagandeep Singh 3-28) vs Punjab.
PLATE SCORES: Gujarat: 228 all out in 66.3 overs (Parthiv Patel 49, NK Patel 31, DM Popat 63; K Das 4-73, S Suresh 4-46) vs Assam: 56/4 in 24 overs (AM Makda 2-13).

Goa: 258/8 in 90 overs (SK Kamat 40, J Arunkumar 55, SB Jakati 25, A Angle 54 batting; Joginder Sharma 2-59, Budhwar 2-38, A Mishra 3-52) vs Haryana.

Madhya Pradesh: 100/4 in 50.3 overs (Jatin Saxena 69 batting; SS Rao 2-28) vs Jharkhand.
Jammu & Kashmir: 194 all out in 77.3 overs (ID Singh 62, Sajjad Shaikh 40, Vijay Sharma 34 batting; Harvinder Singh 4-97, SR Saxena 2-36, MS Yadav 4-22) vs Railways: 39/0 in 10 overs.

Services: 102 all out in 47.4 overs (D Israni 46; V Jain 2-41, TK Chanda 2-19, J Debnath 4-13) vs Tripura: 93/2 in 40 overs (Manoj Singh 35 batting, SD Chowdhury 34; AK Mohanty 2-25)

Kerala: 169 all out in 88.1 overs (PV Gandhe 4-53, SA Khare 2-22) vs Vidarbha: 0/0 in 1 over.