Ranji Trophy: Manish Pandey props up Karnataka; Andhra register win

Manish Pandey

Bangalore, Dec 24 (IANS) Thanks to a century by Manish Pandey (119, 147b, 13×4, 2×6), Karnataka batted themselves into a safe position, but Mumbai picked up points for the first innings lead on the third and penultimate day of the Group A Ranji Trophy league match, here Tuesday.

Replying to Karnataka’s first innings total of 251, Mumbai managed to score 269 after starting the day at 217 for seven as Siddesh Lad went on to score 93 and his eighth wicket partnership with Javed Khan (48) was worth 80.

Trailing by 18 runs, Karnataka were 286 for eight at stumps after shrugging off the loss of two early wickets as Pandey and opener debutant Ravikumar Samarth (75, 111b, 10×4) put on 133 runs for the third wicket to take their team to safety.

With an overall lead of 269, the onus is on Karnataka to either declare the innings and attempt winning the match outright or continue batting on the last day, thus consuming valuable time and giving themselves fewer overs to take 10 Mumbai wickets.

Meanwhile in Agartala, Andhra Pradesh tasted their first win of the season as they beat Tripura with a bonus point. Andhra bowled Tripura out for 86 in their second innings to set up a ten-wicket win. Medium-pacer Duvvarapu Shivkumar took four wickets to run through Tripura, set Andhra a fourth-innings chase of 103.

Andhra achieved the target in just 21.2 overs, with Srikar Bharat hitting an unbeaten 70-ball 64 and Prasanth Kumar remained not out on 39.

Brief scores:

Group A

Karnataka 251 all out and 287 for 8 in 74 overs (Ravikumar Samarth 75, Manish Pandey 119, Lokesh Rahul 32, Javed Khan 2 for 68, Saurabh Netravalkar 2 for 42, Vishal Dabholkar 2 for 89) vs Mumbai (1st innings): 269 all out in 89.4 overs (Hiken Shah 44, Siddhesh Lad 93, Javed Khan 48, Sharath HS 5 for 57, Shreyas Gopal 3 for 52).

Delhi 150 and 60/3 (Gambhir 22 not out) vs Punjab 74 and 402 (Jiwanjot 147)

Odisha 345/8 (Nataraj 106, Dhurv 4-78) v Gujarat 479 for 8 dec (Rao 177)

Jharkhand 332 and 83 for 3 (Wagh 3-20) v Vidarbha 218

Group B

Baroda 400 and 207/6 (Wakaskar 69, Unadkat 4-30) v Saurashtra 311 (Utkarsh 5-70)

Rajasthan 307/4 (Saxena 83, Menaria 62) v Tamil Nadu 318

Uttar Pradesh 250 and 78/3 (Raina 41 not out, Datey 2-34) v Madhya Pradesh 115 (Rajpoot 5-37)

Railways 107 and 219/6 (Rawat 62 not out) v Services 153 (Yashpal 67, Anureet 4-44)

Group C

Goa 242 and 82/5 (Vaz 33 not out) v Kerala 273 and 147 (Prasanth 46)

J&K 198/6 (Mehdi 3-55) v Hyderabad 514/8 dec (Ravi Teja 179, Vihari 109)

Himachal 228 and 98/1 v Maharashtra 488/6 dec (Bawne 138*)

Andhra Prdesh 163 and 104 for no loss (Bharat 64 not out) beat Tripura 179 and 86 (Sivakumar 4-24) by 10 wickets