RANJI TROPHY | Match poised evenly as Karnataka and Maharashtra trade blows

Maharashtra’s left-arm pacer Mukesh Choudhary struck aboriginal and with venom, but Shreyas Gopal’s all-round brilliance brought Karnataka backmost into the contention connected the 2nd time of their Ranji Trophy Group B clash astatine the Maharashtra Cricket Association’s International Stadium present connected Sunday.

At stumps, Maharashtra reached 200 for six successful reply to Karnataka’s 313, leaving the visitant with a slender vantage astatine the halfway stage.

Shreyas’ composed sound (71, 162 balls, 9x4) guided Karnataka past the 300-run people aft a shaky start. Later, his crafty leg-spin fetched him 4 wickets and turned the crippled erstwhile again successful Karnataka’s favour.

Choudhary, though, was the aboriginal leader for Maharashtra. Swinging the shot some ways, helium returned a devastating greeting spell of 9-2-22-3. His fiery burst dismantled the little bid aft Abhinav Manohar, dropped doubly disconnected his bowling, yet succumbed to a transportation that sent his off-stump cartwheeling.

Choudhary’s three-wicket burst successful 4 balls — dispersed implicit 2 overs — near Karnataka reeling, earlier Shreyas farmed the onslaught to adhd 35 important runs for the past 2 wickets.

When day lad Prithvi Shaw (71, 92b, 9x4) and Arshin Kulkarni (34, 48b, 5x4) counterattacked successful style, Maharashtra appeared acceptable to instrumentality complaint successful beforehand of a lively Sunday crowd. The opening brace added 98 brisk runs, scoring freely against Karnataka’s gait trio.

But Shreyas spun his web aft lunch. He lured Kulkarni retired of his crease, allowing K.L. Shrijith to implicit a crisp stumping. Next over, Siddhesh Veer danced down the way and missed a chaotic swing, gifting Shreyas another.

Six overs later, skipper Ankeet Bawane was undone by a incorrect 1 that crashed into the stumps. When off-spinner Mohsin Khan dismissed Shaw soon after, Maharashtra had slipped to 114 for four.

Saurabh Nawale past steadied the innings with Sachin Dhas and aboriginal Jalaj Saxena, but Shreyas struck again earlier stumps — K.V. Aneesh snapping up a crisp drawback astatine silly constituent to manus him his 4th wicket.

With some teams trading blows, the contention remains delicately poised heading into time three.

The scores: Karnataka — 1st innings: K.V. Aneesh lbw b Saxena 34, Mayank Agarwal st Nawale b Saxena 80, K.L. Shrijith b Saxena 10, Karun Nair b Ghosh 4, R. Smaran c Bawane b Ostwal 54, Abhinav Manohar b Choudhary 47, Shreyas Gopal c Dhas b Ostwal 71, Venkatesh M. c Nawale b Choudhary 0, Mohsin Khan lbw b Choudhary 0, Abhilash Shetty lbw b Saxena 0, Vidwath Kaverappa (not out) 0; Extras (lb-13): 13; Total (in 111 overs): 313.

Fall of wickets: 1-66, 2-82, 3-89, 4-188, 5-194, 6-276, 7-276, 8-280, 9-291.

Maharashtra bowling: Gurbani 14-2-38-0, Choudhary 17-3-66-3, Ostwal 26-8-53-2, Saxena 35-3-94-4, Ghosh 19-4-49-1.

Maharashtra — 1st innings: Prithvi Shaw c Aneesh b Mohsin 71, Arshin Kulkarni st Shrijith b Shreyas 34, Siddhesh Veer st Shrijith b Shreyas 0, Ankeet Bawane b Shreyas 6, Sachin Dhas lbw b Mohsin 21, Saurabh Nawale a Aneesh b Shreyas 26, Jalaj Saxena (batting) 34, Vicky Ostwal (batting) 4; Extras (b-2, lb-1, nb-1): 4; Total (for six wickets successful 66 overs): 200.

Fall of wickets: 1-98, 2-100, 3-112, 4-114, 5-139, 6-183.

Karnataka bowling: Kaverappa 9-0-47-0, Abhilash 4-0-20-0, Shreyas 23-3-46-4, Venkatesh 6-1-28-0, Mohsin 24-3-56-2.