Group B topper Karnataka suffered a batting failure for its worst start this Ranji Trophy season at the Services Sports Complex here on Monday. It was bundled out for 179 on the opening day of its Round VII game against Odisha. At stumps, Odisha was 42 for two.
C.M. Gautam — who top-scored with 54 — played a lone hand even as the Karnataka batsmen fell to a combination of poor shots. He brought up his 50 with a drive through point for two runs, and followed it up with a four to midwicket, before being caught at deep cover to bring down the curtains on Karnataka’s innings.
“It was a below par score, we were looking at something like 300 here but it happens, it was an off day. But so far we have always been comfortably placed so this would be a good challenge to fight back and get a result,” Gautam said.
Even though the two captains had agreed before the game that the pitch appeared favourable to seamers, it wasn’t a minefield. The ball did rise occasionally and there was early movement — expected at this time of the year in the city — but neither the pitch nor the bowlers, who did well to stick to bowling close to the stumps, were unplayable.
Mayank Agarwal going for a non-existent single was run out by wicket-keeper Saurabh Rawat from short fine-leg with just six runs on the board.
R. Samarth and Robin Uthappa tried rebuilding the innings and put together 52 for the second wicket but the former too was run out. Three balls later, Uthappa edged to third slip to give Alok Mangaraj his only wicket.
Thereafter, there were hardly any scores or partnerships of note as no batsman tried to settle down before attempting the big shots.
Two wickets towards the end of day’s play helped Karnataka but with the Palam pitch known to ease out from the second day onwards, its bowlers need to strike early to try and get a result.
The scores:
Karnataka — 1st innings: R. Samarth run out 26, Mayank Agarwal run out 4, Robin Uthappa c Abhishek b Mangaraj 23, Kaunain Abbas lbw b Mohanty 6, Stuart Binny c Rawat b Mohanty 7, C.M. Gautam c Mohanty b Dhiraj 54, Shreyas Gopal lbw b Samantaray 4, R. Vinay Kumar c Rawat b Samantaray 16, K. Gowtham c Rawat b Pradhan 21, Ronit More b Mohanty 4, Sreenath Arvind (not out) 0; Extras (b-5, lb-1, nb-8): 14; Total (in 66.2 overs): 179.
Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-58, 3-58, 4-78, 5-82, 6-95, 7-121, 8-149, 9-179.
Odisha bowling: Basant Mohanty 19-6-46-3, Suryakant Pradhan 15-4-46-1, Alok Mangaraj 11-3-22-1, Biplab Samantaray 10-2-20-2, Govinda Poddar 3-1-8-0, Dhiraj Singh 8.2-1-31-1.
Odisha — 1st innings: Sandeeep Pattanaik c Samarth b Arvind 18, Ranjit Singh run out 6, Govinda Poddar (batting) 16, Dhiraj Singh (batting) 0; Extras (b-1, lb-1): 2; Total (for two wickets in 18 overs): 42.
Fall of wickets: 1-23, 2-37.
Karnataka bowling: R. Vinay Kumar 5-1-16-0, Sreenath Arvind 7-3-9-1, Stuart Binny 4-2-9-0, Ronit More 2-0-6-0.
