Uthappa, Nair smash tons

Cricket Ranji Trophy : Karnataka reach 223 for two after bowling Assam out for 325

Seasoned batsman Robin Uthappa and skipper Karun Nair slammed strokeful unbeaten centuries as Karnataka rallied from a poor start to gain control of the proceedings against Assam on day two of their Group ‘B’ Ranji Trophy tie here on Friday.

The duo, who joined forces at the fall of openers Mayank Agarwal and R Samarth with only four runs on the board, compiled a 219-run stand to remain unbeaten at stumps as Karnataka reached 223 for two, still 102 runs adrift of Assam’s first innings tally of 325 at the Bandra Kurla Complex.

Earlier, resuming from 268 for six, Assam were dismissed for 325.
Stuart Binny gave an early break for Karnataka by sending back overnight batsman Sarupam Purkayastha in the third over for 59 before leggie Shreyas Gopal bagged last three wickets.

Amit Verma, resuming from 125, was stranded on 166 off 316 balls, inclusive of three sixes and 23 fours. Karnataka pacer Abhimanyu Mithun, who left the field with a groin strain on Thursday, didn’t take the field on Friday.

Uthappa, who struck two sixes and 12 fours in his 206-ball innings, remained unconquered on 108, his first 20-plus score of the season and his 21st first-class hundred in his 126th game.

Nair, who came into the game with three half-centuries in as many innings, scored his career’s eighth hundred in his 37th first class match and remained unbeaten on 108.

The duo, unperturbed by the two early wickets, took the team to 46 for two at lunch and opened out in the second session with aggressive cricket. They continued to dominate in the final session and kept Karnataka in control.

Both the batsmen made use of the reprieves and helped Karnataka reach a strong position at stumps.

Uthappa was caught behind off Abu Nechim in the first over after lunch but the 30-year-old survived after it was found that Nechim had overstepped. Nair received a life very early in his innings, when he was dropped on nought by wicketkeeper KB Arun Karthik off Arup Das. Assam had yet another chance to get a breakthrough when Karnataka were 175 for two but Gokul Sharma dropped Nair off Amit Verma.

Nair was then batting on 85 then. His knock of 108 came of 198 balls with the help of 13 fours.

“Despite the two early wickets, we decided to play our natural game. I worked on my batting with Pravin Amre in the last couple of days and it was very useful,” said Uthappa, who also praised Nair for his century.

“Full marks to Karun for playing a responsible knock. He is a highly talented player who has the ability to pace his knock well,” said Uthappa.

score board

ASSAM (I Innings, O/n: 268/6): Rishav Das c Uthappa b Arvind 0 (27m, 19b), Rahul Hazarika c Uthappa b Arvind 4 (6m, 3b, 1x4), Gokul Sharma c Samarth b Arvind 8 (40m, 25b, 1x4), Amit Verma (not out) 166 (316b, 23x4, 3x6), KB Arun Karthik b Arvind 35 (80m, 54b, 4x4, 1x6), Tarjinder Singh c Gautam b Binny 26 (74m, 67b, 4x4, 1x6), Jamaluddin Syed Mohammad c Gautam b Arvind 0 (39m, 25b), Swarupam Purkayastha c sub b Binny 59 (95b, 7x4, 1x6), Abu Nechim lbw Gopal 13 (28b, 3x4), Arup Das c Gautam b Gopal 0 (2b), Krishna Das c Gautam b Gopal 0 (19b). Extras (B-8, LB-6) 14. Total (all out, 108.5 overs) 325.

Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Hazarika), 2-5 (Rishav), 3-16 (Gokul), 4-92 (Karthik), 5-146 (Tarjinder), 6-166 (Syed Mohammad), 7-275 (Purkayastha), 8-315 (Nechim), 9-315 (Arup).

Bowling: Abhimanyu Mithun 1.4-1-0-0, S Arvind 27-9-70-5, Stuart Binny 23.2-4-81-2, K Gowtham 30-11-72-0, Karun Nair 5-1-9-0, Shreyas Gopal 20.5-2-74-3, Mayank Agarwal 1-0-5-0.

KARNATAKA (I Innings): R Samarth b Arup 0 (8b), Mayank Agarwal c Rishav b Krishna 0 (3b), Robin Uthappa (batting) 108 (206b, 12x4, 2x6), Karun Nair (batting) 108 (198b, 13x4). Extras (B-4, LB-2, NB-1) 7. Total (for 2 wkts, 69 overs) 223.

Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Agarwal), 2-4 (Samarth).
Bowling: Arup Das 14-4-27-1, Krishna Das 15-3-46-1, Abu Ahmed 10-1-35-0, Swarupam Purkayastha 11-2-41-0, Jamaluddin Syed Mohammad 5-0-23-0, Amit Verma 14-1-45-0.

Ranji Trophy round-up

Group A

At Delhi: Baroda (O/n: 358/6) 529 all out in 140 overs (Dhiren Mistry 76, Deepak Hooda 293 n.o., Pinal Shah 42, Swapnil Singh 45, Sagar Mangalorkar 30; Sandeep Sharma 4-101, Siddharth Kaul 2-127, Shubek Gill 2-69) vs Punjab: 121/1 in 35 overs (Manan Vohra 67 n.o., Uday Kaul 33 n.o.).

At Dharamsala: Bengal: 205 all out in 69.5 overs and 208/9 in 74.2 overs (Abhimanyu Easwaran 25, Sayan Mondal 30, Manoj Tiwary 48, Wriddhiman Saha 44; Deepak Bansal 3-40, Amit Mishra 2-62, Karan Thakur 3-39) vs Railways (O/n: 37/4): 105 all out in 27.3 overs (Karn Sharma 40; Ashok Dinda 5-45, Amit Kuila 2-24, Sayan Ghosh 3-31).

At Delhi: Gujarat (O/n: 276/6): 347 all out in 110.2 overs (Samit Gohel 60, Priyank Kirit Panchal 60, Parthiv Patel 60, Chirag Gandhi 87; Imitiaz Ahmed 5-73) vs Uttar Pradesh: 147/4 in 67 overs (Tanmay Srivastava 45, Samarth Singh 50; Hardik Patel 3-58).

At Cuttack: Tamil Nadu (O/n: 262/2): 547/7 in 174 overs (Kaushik Gandhi 157, Vijay Shankar 41, Dinesh Karthik 95, Baba Indrajith 68, Narayan Jagadeesan 118 n.o., Malolan Rangarajan 37; Ashwin Das 3-111, Chandrakant Sakure 2-102).

Group B

At Chandigarh: Odisha: 237 all out in 77.4 overs vs Delhi (O/n: 43/0): 351/7 in 100 overs (Gautam Gambhir 147, Dhruv Shorey 29, Rishabh Pant 60, Milind Kumar 39 n.o., Sumit Narwal 35; Govinda Poddar 2-65, Dhiraj Singh 3-61, Suryakant Pradhan 2-84).
At Wayanad: Vidarbha: 105 all out in 42 overs and 48/0 in 11 overs (Faiz Fazal 29 n.o.) vs Jharkhand (O/n: 146/1): 362/8 declared in 122.5 overs (Anand Singh 76, Pratyush Singh 86, Saurabh Tiwary 45, Ishank Jaggi 112 n.o.; Shrikant Wagh 2-67, Rajneesh Gurbani 2-61, Akshay Karnewar 2-45).

At Hyderabad: Maharashtra (O/n: 280/3) 461 all out in 147.4 overs (Swapnil Gugale 25, Naushad Shaikh 143, Ankit Bawne 83, Rahul Tripathi 95, Vishant More 62; Pankaj Singh 4-62, TM Ul-Haq 2-77, Mahipal Lomror 2-47) vs Rajasthan 76/2 in 30 overs (Manender Singh 31 n.o.).

Group C

At Mumbai: Andhra (O/n: 217/6) 253 all out in 99.3 overs (Prasanth Kumar 74, Hanuma Vihari 62, AG Pradeep 44; Yuzvendra Chahal 5-81, Sanjay Pahal 3-31) and 95/3 in 27 overs (H Vihari 47 n.o, K Sreekanth 33; Mohit Sharma 2-10)  vs Haryana 103 all out in 43.5 overs (D Sivakumar 5/25).    

At Jamshedpur: Kerala (194/8): 207 all out in 71.2 overs (Bhavin Thakkar 33, Rohan Prem 62, Sanju Samson 41; Sumit Ruikar 5-50, Pankaj Rao 3-35) vs Chhattisgarh: 179/9 in 90 overs (Amandeep Khare 35, Abhimanyu Chauhan 37; Karaparambil Monish 3-34, Jalaj S Saxena 2-50, Iqbal Abdulla 3-26).

At Bhubaneswar: Tripura: 283 all out in 80 overs vs Goa: 220/8 in 81 overs (Swapnil Asnodkar 57, Snehal Kauthankar 43, Sagun Kamat 38; Gurinder Singh 3-40, Bunti Roy 2-67, Manisankar M 2-50).

At Guwahati: Himachal Pradesh (O/n: 8/2): 36 all out in 25 overs (Akash Bhandari 4-0, Ravi Kiran 3-12, Chama Milind 2-15) vs Hyderabad: 99/7 in 41 overs (Balchander Anirudh 44 n.o.; Rishi Dhawan 6-35).

At Jaipur: Services (O/n: 287/3): 477 all out in 144.5 overs (Soumik Chatterjee 27, Ravi Chauhan 47, Shamsher Yadav 72, Rahul Singh 182, Vikas Hathwala 44; Parvez Rasool 5-117, Aamir Aziz 2-90, Ram Dayal 2-63) vs Jammu & Kashmir: 96/1 in 34 overs (Shubham Khajuria 34 n.o., Pranav Gupta 29, Ian Dev Singh 30).