Ranji Trophy: We wanted to get them out before tea, says Kaverappa

Nagpur: Karnataka’s only hope of a way back in the quarterfinal against Vidarbha was on its pacers. The trio of Vidwath Kaverappa, Vyshak V and V Koushik have been phenomenal this season, playing a key role in team's march to the knockouts, and the side needed another strong performance from them if they wished to extend the Ranji Trophy journey.

Although Karnataka are still some distance away from securing their semifinal ticket, the trio of Kaverappa, Vyshak and Koushik delivered a power-packed performance on Monday that gave further credence to the talk that they indeed are the best triumvirate of pacers on the domestic circuit.

The tall and slim Kaverappa, just 25 years of age, led the attack with gusto, bagging 6/61 and 27-year-old Vyshak complemented him brilliantly with 4/81 as they blew apart Vidarbha for 196 in the second innings with pace, aggression and accuracy. For over two sessions, they just kept bowling and bowling, barely taking any breather to bring Karnataka back into the contest.

Kaverappa, looking fresh despite hurling 19.2 overs on the day, said bowling long spells is nothing new to him and he was prepared for the grind, for the sake of the team. “We knew we had to push ourselves and I’m accustomed to bowling a lot of overs. I’ve done it in the Tripura game as well. I’m used to bowling long spells in club games. It was not a big deal for us.”

Kaverappa, who bagged his maiden first-class 10-wicket match haul, said the gameplan was to be aggressive and bowl out Vidarbha before tea. “It was just simple for us, we knew what we had to do. If we had to stay in the game, we knew we had to pick up early wickets. We just wanted to get them all out before tea. We knew we had the potential to bag all the 10 wickets before tea. We went out there with a plan and executed it perfectly.”