Karun Nair's hundred carries Karnataka to strong position

Karun Nair made his 25th first-class hundred to take Karnataka to a strong position against Goa on the rain-hit second day of their Ranji Trophy Elite Group B match here on Sunday. Karun, who was omitted from the India Test squad after a middling series in England recently, made an unbeaten 174 off 267 balls to announce his return to the run-making ways.

It helped Karnataka make 371 in their first innings after resuming from overnight 222 for five. Karun started the day from 86, and batted in his usual solid self to complete the hundred. Lower-order batters like Vysakh Vijayakumar (31) helped Karun to move the Karnataka innings past the 350-mark. For Goa, pacers Arjun Tendulkar and former Karnataka player Vasuki Koushik picked up three wickets each.

Goa were 28 for one when the rain poured down to end the day’s proceedings, and now they trail by 343 runs going into the third day. Dubey leads MP fight: Opener Yash Dubey made an unbeaten 109 off 236 balls as Madhya Pradesh survived two late blows to reach 195 for four against Saurashtra at Rajkot. The home side starting from 258 for eight were bowled out quite early in the first session for 260.

Aryan Pandey and Kumar Kartikeya shared eight wickets among them equally. Dubey and opener Harsh Gawli added 87 runs for the opening wicket before the latter fell to seasoned pacer Jaidev Unadkat. Thereafter, Dubey and Himanshu Mantri added 64 runs for the second wicket to take MP past the 150-run mark. But Mantri and skipper Shubham Sharma fell in the space of five runs and Harpreet Singh was dismissed at the fag end of the day as Saurashtra gained some of the lost ground. 

Brief scores: At Shivamogga: Karnataka: 371 all out in 110.1 overs (Karun Nair 174 not out, Shreyas Gopal 57; Arjun Tendulkar 3/100, Vasuki Koushik 3/35).

At Rajkot: Saurashtra: 260 all out vs Madhya Pradesh: 195/4 in 78 overs (Yash Dubey 109 batting; Jaidev Unadkat 1/15).

At Mullanpur: Punjab: 436 all out in 163.4 overs (Harnoor Singh 170, Prerit Dutta 74; Ankit Sharma 4/103) vs Kerala: 15/1 in 7 overs.

At Chandigarh: Maharashtra: 313 all out and 66/0 in 11 overs (Prithvi Shaw 41 batting) vs Chandigarh: 209 all out in 73 overs (Raman Bishnoi 54, Nishunk Birla 56; Vicky Ostwal 6/40). PTI UNG ATK