File photo: R Samarth spent over 11 hours at the crease to put Karnataka in a dominant position © PTI
R Samarth‘s maiden first-class double-century was the highlight of Karnataka’s dominant batting performance against Jharkhand in Greater Noida. Karnataka had gone into stumps on the opening day on 248 for 3, with Samarth on 118 and Kaunain Abbas on 28. On Friday, Samarth scored 235 and Abbas made 55, while every batsman who followed came good as Karnataka piled on 577 for 6 before declaring. Jharkhand ended the day on 9 for no loss, trailing by 568 runs.
After the Samarth-Abbas stand ended, having realised 115, Samarth and Stuart Binny (97) added 185 for the fifth wicket. Samarth added another 46 with CM Gautam, the wicketkeeper, before being dismissed. Gautam remained unbeaten on 36, and Shreyas Gopal was 21 not out when the declaration was made.
Rajasthan came up with a strong reply to Assam’s first-innings total of 195 to gain a 13-run lead in Visakhapatnam. Rajasthan had bowled Assam out for 195 after Pankaj Singh’s 24th five-wicket haul on the opening day.
Starting their innings afresh on the second day, Rajasthan ended on 208 for 3, with Mahipal Lomror unbeaten on 84. Rajasthan lost Manender Singh with just 8 on the board. Lomror and Vineet Saxena then joined hands for a 76-run second-wicket stand. Lomror added 75 more for the third wicket with Ashok Menaria (44), before taking the side to stumps in the company of Rajat Bhatia (28 not out). Arup Das, Abu Nechim and Pallavkumar Das took a wicket apiece.
At the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, Odisha’s bowlers combined to give them the first-innings lead, bowling Saurashtra out for 186. Odisha had been bowled out for 228, despite opener Sandeep Pattnaik’s century, after which Saurashtra had gone into stumps on the first day at 4 for no loss.
New-ball bowlers Basant Mohanty and Suryakant Pradhan and left-arm spinner Dhiraj Singh took all 10 wickets to keep Saurashtra to 186. Mohanty took 4 for 58, while Pradhan and Dhiraj took three each. Jaydev Shah, the Saurashtra captain, top-scored with 64, and Chirag Jani scored 45, but there was no other contribution of note. Although Dharmendrasinh Jadeja resisted with an unbeaten 28 at No. 10, it wasn’t enough to give them the lead.
Odisha lost first-innings centurion Pattnaik and their captain Govinda Poddar early in the second innings, and went into stumps on 62 for 2, leading by 104 runs.
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo