Suchith, Shreyas power Karnataka

 Making full use of the help that the surface provided, spinners Shreyas Gopal and J Suchith claimed seven wickets between them to bundle out Odisha for a modest 232 and help Karnataka take day one honours in their Group ‘A’ Ranji Trophy encounter here at the SDNRW on Saturday.

On a sunny morning, Odisha’s decision to bat first backfired to a large extent and if not for a valiant century from Govinda Poddar (153), the visiting side would have found themselves in deeper trouble. As it has been the case in the past for Odisha, their batting unit crumbled against quality spin bowling but the 24-year-old right hander extended his good form and notched up a fluent ton to take his side past the 200-run mark.

Shreyas (4/75) and Suchith (3/56) bowled in tandem and reaped benefits from the track that offered some amount of turn. The duo foxed the Odisha batsmen with regular flighted deliveries which weren’t too full and the visitors had no answers to some excellent variations thrown at them by the spin combo.

In response to Odisha’s first innings’ effort, Karnataka were 16 for no loss at the end of day’s play. With their bowlers setting the tone with a fine performance, Karnataka batsmen would look to strengthen their dominant position by piling a up strong total as an interesting second day beckons.

The nature of the surface prompted Karnataka to go in with three spinners, forcing the omission of seamers S Arvind and David Mathias. Off-spinner Udit Patel received his first game of the season in place of Arvind while Mathias made way for the returning Nair.

Up against a bowling unit hungry for wickets, Odisha lost the plot right in the first session. Skipper Vinay Kumar castled Natraj Behera for nought with the third ball of the day to set the ball rolling. Wicket-keeper batsman Rajesh Dhuper looked uncomfortable against a tight length bowled by Vinay and Stuart Binny. The right-hander expectedly didn’t survive for long and was caught at slip by R Samarth off Binny.  

A sharp catch at short leg from Abhishek Reddy sent back Anurag Sarangi (1), giving Shreyas his first wicket. The leg-spinner then trapped Ranjit Singh plumb in front as Odisha finished at 103 for four at lunch.

Poddar, however, remained unperturbed by the happenings around him and played a responsible knock. The right-hander found his timing right against pace bowlers and judged the spinners brilliantly to notch his third ton of the season. Pratik Das (40) gave able support to the centurion, as the duo stitched a 93-run stand before Das fell for a mistimed pull off Udit.

Left-arm spinner Suchith, who has a knack of picking up wickets at crucial junctures, bagged the important wicket of Poddar and then quickly cleaned up the tail, leaving the stage open for the home team’s batsmen to take charge.

score board

ODISHA (I Innings): Natraj Behera b Vinay Kumar 0 (3b), Rajesh Dhuper c Samarth b Binny 15 (41b, 1x4), Govinda Poddar b Suchith 153 (230b, 15x4, 1x6), Anurag Sarangi c Reddy b Shreyas 1 (7b), Ranjit Singh lbw Shreyas 6 (32b), Pratik Das c Binny b Udit 40 (108b, 3x4), Biplab Samantaray c Vinay b Shreyas 10 (55b), Suryakant Pradhan c Gautam b Shreyas 2 (3b), Basant Mohanty c Gautam b Suchith 0 (4b), Amit Das (not out) 0 (18b), Dhiraj Singh c Vinay b Shreyas 1 (6b). Extras (NB-2, B-2) 4. Total (all out, 84.1 overs) 232.
Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Behera), 2-42 (Dhuper), 3-47 (Sarangi), 4-73 (Ranjit), 5-166 (Das), 6-200 (Samantaray), 7-207 (Pradhan), 8-216 (Mohanty), 9-231 (Poddar).

Bowling: Vinay Kumar 8-2-23-1, Stuart Binny 9-1-23-1 (NB-2), Karun Nair 2-0-7-0, Shreyas Gopal 29.1-3-75-4, Udit Patel 12-0-38-1, J Suchith 22-5-56-3, R Samarth 1-0-3-0, Mayank Agarwal 1-0-5-0.

KARNATAKA (I Innings): R Samarth (batting) 3, Mayank Agarwal (batting) 13. Total (for no loss, 7 overs) 16.

Bowling: Basant Mohanty 3-1-5-0, Dhiraj Singh 3-1-7-0, Amit Das 1-0-4-0.