Bowling-hero Sharath credits father for rise up the ranks

Having played a big part in Karnataka’s maiden outright win over Mumbai in a Ranji Trophy match, HS Sharath was over the moon as his proud father watched him for the first-time ever in a competitive match from the stands.

Adjudged the man of the match for eight wickets in the match (8/69), the right-arm quick combined with senior pace-bowling mates -- skipper R Vinay Kumar and A Mithun -- to bring Mumbai batsmen to their knees with some aggressive bowling. 

“I didn’t know this was our first outright win against Mumbai... I’m very happy,” said a smiling Sharath on Wednesday in his post-match comments. “It’s a special win because this is also the first time that my father was watching me play. I would like to credit my success to him.”

Karnataka bowlers went through a brief period of frustration when Mumbai halted the free fall in the second session when many edges went for fours. 

“Given the conditions, we knew it would pan out that way and we were taking one ball at a time. We still had 30-35 overs remaining and they had four wickets in hand. We knew wickets would fall soon. We just wanted to keep it simple and bowl in the right areas. We wanted to back-of-length deliveries and Vinay and Mithun gave us good breakthroughs. That was the turning point for us and after that it was easy for me to bowl and pick up wickets.”

Of his three five-wicket hauls in his career, including the one on his debut against Uttar Pradesh last year, Sharath rated his effort of 5/57 in the first innings as his best. “This one is more special because the performance has come against a top team like Mumbai,” said Sharath who was egged on his supporters from his native Hosalli.

Losing skipper Wasim Jaffer blamed inexperience for the defeat. "It's a very young side. I have played about 110-120 games and the next probably would have played 15-17 games, that's the maximum. There are some talented players but they will take time.

 Obviously we wanted three points from this game. We were looking to save this game from the start but the last game becomes very critical now,” he reasoned.