Karnataka spinners cast a spell on Jharkhand

Finally, the spinners rose in unison to soothe, at least for the moment, Karnataka’s biggest concern ahead of the knockouts.

On Tuesday, the opening day of their Ranji Trophy Group C tie against Jharkhand, K Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal and Shubhang Hegde picked up eight wickets between them to put Mayank Agarwal’s men in a dominant position.

With Gowtham bagging four, Shreyas scalping three and Shubhang ending with one, Karnataka bowled Jharkhand out for 165 in 64.2 overs before the batters cut the deficit down to 84 by reaching 80 for 2 at stumps.

Until this game, Karnataka, almost exclusively, hinged their bowling hopes on their pace unit, which comprises V Koushik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Vidwath Kaverappa and Ronit More.

With More out of the squad, Koushik, Vyshak and Kaverappa have carried the bowling load with plenty of character and success.

The surface at the Keenan stadium has assisted pacers more so in the past, but this combination choice worked for Karnataka, mostly so because Gowtham picked up four of the top five wickets after coming on early to instigate the slide. Shreyas picked three thereafter.

SCOREBOARD

Jharkhand (I Innings): Kumar Deobrat c BR Sharath b Kaverappa 18, Aryaman Sen c (sub, Siddharth) b Gowtham 6, Kumar Suraj c Agarwal b Gowtham 22, Virat Singh lbw Gowtham 8, Saurabh Tiwary lbw Gowtham 0, Kumar Kushagra c Pandey b Shreyas 37, Anukul Roy b Kaverappa 6, Shahbaz Nadeem c Pandey b Shubhang 22, Surpiyo Chakraborty lbw Shreyas 14, Ashish Kumar (not out) 10, Vinayak Viram b Shreyas 3. Extras (B-10, LB-5, W-2, NB-1) 18. TOTAL (all out, 64.2 overs) 165.

Fall of wickets: 1-30 (Deobrat), 2-41 (Sen), 3-57 (Virat), 4-57 (Tiwary), 5-86 (Suraj), 6-95 (Anukul), 7-133 (Nadeem), 8-139 (Kushagra), 9-154 (Surpiyo).

Bowling: Vidwath Kaverappa 14-4-34-2, V Koushik 12-6-20-0, K Gowtham 24-5-61-4, Shreyas Gopal 11.2-4-18-3, Shubhang Hegde 3-0-16-1.

Karnataka (I Innings): R Samarth b Roy 31, Mayank Agarwal c Aryaman b Nadeem 20, Devdutt Padikkal (batting) 20, Nikin Jose (batting) 8. Extras (LB-1) 1. TOTAL (for 2 wickets, 27 overs) 80.

Fall of wickets: 1-46 (Agarwal), 2-66 (Samarth).

Bowling: Ashish Kumar 5-0-16-0, Supriyo Chakraborty 2-0-9-0, Shahbaz Nadeem 11-0-40-1, Anukul Roy 8-2-12-1, Vinayak Vikram 1-0-2-0.

Other Group C brief scores: In Raipur: Chhattisgarh: 273/4 in 88 overs (Anuj Tiwary 86, Shashank Chandrakar 101, Ashutosh Singh 55; Vijesh Prabhudessai 2-52) vs Goa.

In Puducherry: Puducherry: 253/4 in 87 overs (Jay Pande 38, Paras Dogra 117 batting, Arun Karthik 65 batting) vs Kerala.

In Jodhpur: Services: 178 all out in 56.4 overs (Sufiyan Alam 25, Rahul Singh 70, Pulkit Narang 38; Aniket Choudhary 2-32, Deepak Chahar 2-40, Manav Suthar 4-56) vs Rajasthan: 58/2 in 21 overs.