Saurashtra edges ahead with tenth-wicket stand despite Shreyas Gopal’s eight-wicket haul

Bengaluru: The tenth wicket stand of 34 runs between Chetan Sakariya (29) and Yuvrajsinh Dodiya (13 not out) turned out to be a painful thorn in Karnataka’s flesh as Saurashtra scraped through to a small four-run lead to pull the first innings honours in their favour despite a brilliant Shreyas Gopal returning with figures of 8/110 in 39.3 overs. 

Saurashtra were eventually bowled out for 376 in 121.3 overs in reply to Karnataka’s 372, bringing an end to a frustrating period of play for the visitors, where they were made to work hard for the last wicket in their Ranji Trophy opening round clash at the Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot.

Having walked back to the dressing room after conceding the lead, Karnataka, in their second innings, began the third and final session of day 3 positively as Nikin Jose took charge of the scoring duties. 

Jose (34) hit four fours and a six before Gajjar Sammar drew first blood by pinning him in front in the last ball of the 17th over. 

One-drop Devdutt Padikkal (18 not out) joined hands with Mayank Agarwal (31 not out) and the experienced Karnataka duo saw through the last phase of play without any further hiccups, going to stumps on 89/1 in 28 overs, leading Saurashtra by 85 runs.

Earlier in the day, Prerak Mankad (27), who looked solid before the close of play on day 2, was the first of the Saurashtra batters to go, trapped in front of his sticks by Shreyas. 

The hosts’ hopes of polishing their innings received a boost when Sammar joined Arpit Vasavada in the middle. 

The duo stitched a 54-run partnership and drove their team’s total into the 290s. Just when the pendulum started to swing towards Saurashtra, they suffered a blow when Shreyas removed Vasavada for 58 to leave the hosts 291/6.  

Shreyas, who was causing all the concerns for Saurashtra, picked up another wicket to gift himself a sixth scalp while sending Jadeja back for 12.

Debutant Shikhar Shetty, after a decent day’s work alongside the other two spinners, finally opened his wicket column in Ranji Trophy cricket as he hit Jaydev Unadkat’s (6) timber. 

Shreyas then dismissed the well-set Sammar on 45 to send jitters in the Saurashtra change room, with the hosts still 30 behind with only one wicket in the kitty. 

After the fall of the ninth wicket at 342, Sakariya and Dodiya joined hands, defended, found gaps, ran risky singles, survived a run-out shout and then, when the time was right, took on the Karnataka bowlers for a couple of fours and sixes as the score went past 372. Shreyas finally broke the partnership and the final resistance to keep Saurashtra’s lead to four. But the damage was done.