Shreyas' ton boosts Karnataka

Cricket Ranji Trophy: Defending champs reach a strong 408 in their first innings on a day of records

Riding on Shreyas Gopal’s maiden first-class century, defending champions Karnataka posted 408 in the first innings against Bengal on day two of the Group A Ranji Trophy match, here on Monday.

Coming to bat at number nine in the four-day encounter at Eden Gardens, Gopal struck a fluent 145 off 197 balls (19x4, 1x6) and combined with Sreenath Arvind (29 n.o.) to register a record 148-run 10th-wicket partnership for Karnataka.

Gopal’s 145 is the highest score for a number nine batsman for the state, surpassing Dodda Ganesh’s 119 made against Vidharbha at Nagpur in 2002-03. Gopal’s 148-run allaince with Arvind is also a new state record for the last wicket partnership, going past the 121 between Yere Goud and NC Aiyyappa against Rajasthan at Gangotri Glades, Mysore, in 2007-08. The domestic record is held by Delhi’s Ajay Sharma and Maninder Singh, who stitched 233 together against the then Bombay in 1991-92 season.

In reply, Bengal had a slow start before ending the day at 62 for one, still needing a huge 347 runs to ensure three points. Starting the day on 237 for seven, Karnataka never gave Bengal bowlers a breather after play resumed post a 45-minute stoppage due to bad light.

Dinda (7/87) began impressively dismissing Vinay Kumar without any addition to his overnight 42 in the first over of the day en route to his 16th five-wicket haul but their momentum was broken after bad-light halted play.

By the time the play resumed the wicket had eased out and it was all about the grit and application shown by Shreyas and Arvind.

Composed innings

Their intention was pretty clear and they dominated the proceedings going into lunch at 350 for nine with Shreyas five runs shy of the three-figure mark. Shreyas, who bats in the middle-order in the age-group cricket, never lost his composure and celebrated his maiden first-class century off Veer Pratap Singh, who bagged three wickets.

Having completed his century, the 21-year-old Karnataka lad hit Veer Pratap for a six as Bengal bowlers had a tough time to break the partnership.

It was Dinda, who finally brought an end to the misery by dismissing Shreyas through an edge behind the stumps while going for a backfoot punch. Bengal opening duo of Rohan Banerjee and Arindam were extra cautious and restrained themselves from playing their natural game.

Vinay gave the breakthrough dismissing Das as Sudeep Chaterjee, fresh from his glorious 192 in Baroda, was batting on 10 along with Banerjee (27 n.o.) at stumps.

score board

KARNATAKA (I Innings): Robin Uthappa c Goswami b Dinda 0, Mayank Agarwal c Goswami b Dinda 5, Kunal Kapoor c Tiwary b Dinda 24, Manish Pandey c Goswami b Pratap Singh 25, Karun Nair c Goswami b Pratap Singh 2, Stuart Binny c&b Dinda 37, CM Gautam c Banerjee b Pratap Singh 63, R Vinay Kumar c Goswami b Dinda 42, Shreyas Gopal c Goswami b Dinda 145, A Mithun c Tiwary b Dinda 13, S Arvind (not out) 29; Extras (B-11, LB-1, W-3, NB-8) 23, Total (all out; 108.1 overs) 408.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-9, 3-38, 4-42, 5-69, 6-133, 7-178, 8-237, 9-260.
Bowling: Ashok Dinda 32.1-10-87-7, Shib Shankar Paul 20-6-58-0, Veer Pratap Singh 26-1-98-3,  Laxmi Ratan Shukla 12-0-61-0,  Sourashish Lahiri 11-1-61-0,  Manoj Tiwary 7-0-31-0.

BENGAL (I Innings): Rohan Banerjee (not out) 27, Arindam Das c Pandey b Vinay 21, Sudip Chatterjee (not out) 10; Extras (LB-2, NB-2) 4, Total (1 wicket; 25 overs) 62.
Fall of wickets: 1-38.

Bowling: R Vinay Kumar 9-2-22-1, A Mithun 10-4-24-0, Stuart Binny 2-0-5-0, S Arvind 3-1-3-0, Manish Pandey 1-0-6-0.

RANJI ROUND-UP

Group A: At Delhi: Railways (O/n: 25/2): 25/2 in 8.5 overs vs Mumbai. The second day’s play was abandoned without a ball being bowled due to wet ground conditions.

At Indore: Madhya Pradesh (O/n: 195/7 in 90 overs): 296 all out in 116.3 overs: Puneet Datey 63 n.o., Sanjay Mishra 35; Praveen Kumar 3-43, RP Singh 3-68, Kuldeep Yadav 4-48) vs Uttar Pradesh: 149/6 in 56 overs: Umang Sharma 58, Parvinder Singh 25, Praveen Kumar 25 n.o.; Ishwar Pandey 3-17, Sanjay Mishra 2-36).

At Dindgul: Tamil Nadu: 254 all out and 199/1 in 49 overs (Kaushik Gandhi 28, Abhinav Mukund 110 n.o., Baba Aparajith 53 n.o.) vs Jammu and Kashmir (O/n: 28/3): 132 all out in 54.2 overs (Hardeep Singh 35 n.o.; Rahul Shah 4-61, Aushik Srinivas 2-16, Malolan Rangarajan 4-35).

Group B: At Rohtak: Haryana (O/n: 41/2) 136 all out in 52.4 overs (Avi Barot 31, Sachin Rana 41; Samad Fallah 5-36, Anupam Sanklecha 3-31) vs Maharashtra: 105 all out in 39.1 overs: Shrikant Mundhe 27; Ashish Hooda 5-27, Joginder Sharma 3-27).

At Nagpur: Punjab: 195 all out vs Vidarbha (O/n: 3/0) 149/6 in 77 overs (S Badrinath 62, Shalabh Shrivastava 29; Siddarth Kaul 5-44).

At Cuttack: Odisha (O/n: 219/8) 225 all out in 93.2 overs vs Gujarat: 255/4 in 83 overs (Bhargav Merai 87 n.o., Parthiv Patel 44, Priyank Panchal 25, Akshar Patel 31; Biplab Samantray 2-42).

At Jaipur: Rajasthan (5/0): 264/2 in 88 overs (Vineet Saxena 118, Robin Bist 83 n.o., Ashok Menaria 25 n.o.) vs Saurashtra.

Group C: At Hyderabad: Hyderabad (O/n: 290/1): 568/7 in 180 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 135, Syed Quadri 115 n.o.Ashish Reddy 66; Saurabh Bandekar 3-115, Shadab Jakati 2-111) vs Goa.

At Vizianagaram: Kerala (O/n: 202/7): 229 all out in 94.3 overs (Raiphi Gomez 81; Duvvarapu Shivkumar 3-51, C Stephen 3-43)  vs Andhra: 141 all out in 68.3 overs (Mohd Kaif 44, AG Pradeep 53; Nizar Niyas 3-42, U Manukrishnan 3-37, R Gomez 2-27).

At Guwahati: Assam (O/n: 133/6): 191 all out in 72 overs (Kb Arun Karthik 97; A Yadav 2-25, Sunny Gupa 2-27, S Nadeem 2-44, S Quadri 2-46) vs Kharkhand: 196/4 in 69 overs (Ishan Kishan 60, Rameez Nemat 34, Kaushal Singh 37 n.o.; Krishna Das 2-48). 

At Delhi: Tripura: 267/5 in 81 overs (S Roy 33, A Dey 33, Yogesh Takawale 89, Rajesh Banik 49 batting, KK Acharjee 48 batting; S Yadav 2-56).