Dinesh Karthik revived his kinship with the Eden Gardens — he had hit a 92 and 103 during the group league stage against Bengal in January — as he cracked a timely well-constructed 113 that laid the foundation for Tamil Nadu to post a big score against Maharashtra in their Ranji Trophy semifinal here on Thursday.
Tamil Nadu inched towards a giant score as it added 234 on the second day to its overnight 192 for three to reach 426 for five at stumps.
The highlight of the day’s proceedings was the way in which Karthik and Vijay Shankar scripted Tamil Nadu’s recovery. Their partnership of 190 runs (395 balls) for the fourth wicket hauled the team out of a spot of bother when it had lost three wickets for 90 runs.
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Being the senior man, Karthik showed more patience and responsibility in standing up to the Maharashtra pace battery of Samad Fallah, Anupam Sanklecha, Domnic Muthuswami and Shrikant Mundhe and allowed Shankar to do the stroke making.
The two showed good temperament in weathering Maharashtra’s attack in the morning with the new ball, which was taken barely two overs before close of play on the first day, and then launched the run-making process as the day progressed.
Resuming on his overnight 56, Shankar reached the threshold of a century earlier than Karthik but faltered playing a loose shot against the off-spin of Chirag Khurana to be out for 91 (194b, 11x4, 1x6).
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Karthik completed his century thereafter and helped Tamil Nadu to 282 for four at lunch. This was an uncharacteristically cautious effort from an otherwise aggressive batsman like Karthik, who reached his 113 off 304 balls (455 minutes, 16x4).
“The opposition was hardly attacking the stumps and mostly kept bowling far outside the off-stump to make run-making difficult,” Karthik said after the day’s play.
Karthik said he had to adopt an ingenuous approach to build the innings.
“I had to create some shots to get to my score.
“The format of the game is such that we have to be cautious and refrain from unnecessarily chasing the ball when the opposition is mostly bowling at the sixth or the seventh stump,” he added.
Former captain R. Prasanna (64 batting) and B. Indrajith (68 batting) took up from where Shankar and Karthik left off and paired up for an unbeaten 107-run partnership for the sixth wicket.
“We would like to keep batting as long as we can as we have not discussed the declaration as of now,” Karthik said.
The scores:
Tamil Nadu — 1st innings: Abhinav Mukund c Khurana b Sanklecha 23, M. Vijay c Motwani b Joseph 28, B. Aparajith c Mundhe b Fallah 20, Dinesh Karthik c Motwani b Mundhe 113, Vijay Shankar c Jadhav b Khurana 91, R. Prasanna (batting) 64, B. Indrajith (batting) 68; Extras (b-4, lb-15): 19; Total (for five wickets in 177 overs): 426.
Fall of wickets: 1-47, 2-63, 3-90, 4-280, 5-319.
Maharashtra bowling: Samad Fallah 39-14-78-1, Anupam Sanklecha 32-10-90-1, Domnic Muthuswami 33-9-58-1, Shrikant Mundhe 40-12-81-1, Rahul Tripathi 3-0-7-0, Chirag Khurana 21-6-64-1, Harshad Khadiwale 3-0-9-0, Swapnil Gugale 6-1-20-0.