Ranji Highlights: Karun Nair bails out Karnataka; UP, Mumbai, Hyderabad record wins
Elsewhere, Urvil Patel smashed seven sixes in his 67-ball 85
Best Batting performances
Urvil Patel struck seven sixes in his 67-ball 85 to hand Gujarat a 115-run lead against Odisha. Urvil’s efforts were backed up by Harshal Patel’s 60, after debutant Vedant Trivedi reached his hundred earlier in the day.
Abhishek P Nair led Kerala’s response with his maiden first-class hundred, scoring 126 as he forged useful partnerships with Rohan Kunnummal and Sachin Baby. But the visitors are still 318 runs adrift of Jharkhand’s first-innings total with only four wickets in hand.
It was a maiden first-class ton for Vihaan Malhotra too, as the opener set the foundation for Punjab’s pursuit of a first-innings lead against Assam.
Saurabh Rawat’s 107 swelled Uttarakhand’s lead against Railways to 192. The wicketkeeper found good company in Mayank Mishra, who battled away for a 155-ball 51.
Karun Nair’s unbeaten 81 bailed Karnataka out after openers Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul were dismissed early, stretching their second-innings lead to 32 against Andhra.
Andre Siddarth stroked a patient 81 against Rajasthan but his dismissal triggered an alarming collapse as Tamil Nadu lost five wickets for ten runs.
Yashvardhan Dalal’s 72 took Haryana to 253 - a knock that proved critical as the bowlers then rolled Himachal Pradesh over for 113 in the second innings.
Puducherry’s Ritesh Gudge fell agonisingly short of a hundred, with Nikhil Gangta and Mohit Kale assisting him with half-centuries of their own. But it wasn’t enough to prevent Vidarbha from pocketing a big lead in Nagpur.
Jaskirat Singh’s 127 powered Meghalaya to a 150-run lead over Sikkim in Rangpo.
Batting at No. 9, wicketkeeper Jehu Anderson counter-punched his way to a 91-ball 71 to help Mizoram set Manipur a target of 228.
Best Bowling performances
Uttar Pradesh’s Kartik Yadav and Karan Sharma spun a web around Bihar to consign them to an innings defeat in an 18-wicket day. The duo shared eight wickets between them in the first innings and five in the second, where leggie Zeeshan Ansari bagged four of his own.
Tanay Thyagarajan took 6 for 52, finishing with a nine-wicket match haul as Hyderabad wrapped up a resounding innings victory over Tripura at the Gymkhana Ground.
Captain Ayush Badoni showed the way with the ball for Delhi, bagging a five-wicket haul that saw Bengal lose seven wickets for 95 runs, although Bengal bagged a lead in excess of 200.
Mahesh Pithiya’s five-fer and Bhargav Bhatt’s four-wicket haul routed Goa for 199, allowing Baroda to enforce the follow-on.
Hitesh Walunj nabbed five as Services were bundled out for 227 by Maharashtra, who pocketed a handsome 106-run lead. His left-arm spin counterpart Arjun Sharma responded with four of his own though to leave the game in the balance.
Kukna Ajay Singh added three more wickets on Day 3 to finish with a five-fer against Tamil Nadu, securing a healthy first-innings lead for Rajasthan. After bowling Andre Siddarth for 81, he mopped up the tail quickly with Akash Singh chipping in with a couple of wickets.
Shams Mulani bagged three wickets before Tanush Kotian mopped up the tail to hand Mumbai a handsome innings win over Chandigarh.
Medium pacer Kranthi Kumar toiled away for 30 overs and was rewarded with a five-fer for Sikkim against Meghalaya.
