Catches were dropped, appeals came to nothing, and raw emotions swept the arena. Two old rivals slugged it out on a bright, sunny Monday of heat and dust.
Tamil Nadu picked four spinners, expecting to bowl last on a dry surface, but ended up losing the toss. It had to regroup. And, Karnataka progressed to 259 for six on day one of this Ranji contest at the NPR ground.
Padikkal’s luck
The left-handed Devdutt Padikkal displayed glimpses of promise — the lanky batsman leaned into his cover drives, and cut with panache — during his 182-ball 78 (7x4).
He also was immensely lucky. He was dropped on 2 (at point off Vijay Shankar), on 7 (a sitter at short-cover off R. Ashwin) and on 64 (a dolly at mid-on off M. Ashwin) — all by debutant M. Siddharth.
In fact, R. Ashwin, who bowled with rhythm and control, had set Padikkal up with two shorter deliveries and then drew him forward and got him to miscue by getting the ball to dip.
Siddharth dropped three catches and discovered there was no place to hide on a cricket field. Creditably, he still sent down his left-arm spin with zip. The lanky lad had the well-settled Mayank Agarwal (43) nicking a delivery that spun away.
Late in the day, despite the mental pounding, he turned one from middle to off to castle B.R. Sharath.
And the parsimonious Ashwin, who bowled a probing 16-over spell before lunch, created the pressure.
Karnataka captain Karun Nair worked Ashwin to short mid-wicket and set off. Vijay Shankar swooped on the ball and bowler Ashwin did the rest. A massive blow it was.
Padikkal and Pawan Deshpande, the two left-handers, added 116 for the fourth wicket with some enterprising strokes and slices of good fortune before occasional spinner B. Aparajith’s change of pace extracted a miscue from Padikkal.
Between strokes of authority, Deshpande (65, 142b, 6x4) survived a string of appeals from R. Ashwin before the wily off-spinner had the southpaw caught behind.
Painful blow
Fielding close in, Abhinav Mukund took a painful blow on his chest and left the ground. Paceman K. Vignesh castled opener D. Nischal with a nippy incoming delivery but suffered a bout of vomiting.
The scores:
Karnataka: Mayank Agarwal c Aparajith b Siddharth 43, D. Nischal b Vignesh 4, Devdutt Padikkal c sub b Aparajith 78, Karun Nair run out 8, Pavan Deshpande c Jagadeeshan b Ashwin 65, Shreyas Gopal (batting) 35, B.R. Sharath b Siddharth 10, David Mathias (batting) 0; Extras (b-7, lb-5, nb-2, w-2): 16. Total (for 6 wkts. in 94 overs): 259.
Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-71, 3-88, 4-204, 5-222, 6-255.
Tamil Nadu bowling: Vijay Shankar 8-4-15-0, Vignesh 13-4-29-1, R. Ashwin 32-10-68-1, Sai Kishore 12-2-44-0, Siddharth 13-4-33-2, Aparajith 8-1-24-1, M. Ashwin 8-0-34-0.
