Arindam Ghosh hit an unbeaten half-century to lead Railways’ strong response to Karnataka’s huge first innings score of 481 on the second day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group C match here on Friday.
Railways finished the second day at 213 for 3. The team’s cause was helped by Ghosh’s knock of 78 (108 balls, 12 fours, 1 six) and fifties by Mrunal Devdhar and Vivek Singh after Karnataka had rode on tons by skipper Manish Pandey’s 156, (121 balls, 12 fours, 10 sixes) and KV Siddharth’s unbeaten 146 (250 balls, 18X4, 2X6) to post a huge total.
Resuming at 392 for 5, Karnataka lost the wicket of overnight not-out batsman Siddharth after he had added six runs to his score. Railways hit back with some quick wickets and had the opposition at 438 for 9.
All-rounder K Gowtham, however, had different ideas, as he chose to go on the attack, hammering four boundaries and four sixes in his 32-ball 52 to enable Karnataka to swell its total.
For Railways, debutant right-arm medium-pacer Yuvraj Singh finished with a five-wicket haul, which prevented Karnataka from posting an even bigger score.
The Railways openers Devdhar and Vivek Singh began in earnest in response to the massive total by the opposition and added 110 runs for the first wicket.
Gowtham hit back by dismissing Devdhar and Shivam Choudhary (8) in the space of eight runs. Vivek Singh and Ghosh added 80 runs to steady the ship.
Singh’s 174-ball vigil ended when Gowtham had him caught behind by S Sharath. Ghosh and Mohammad Saif (8 batting) saw through the last few overs safely. Railways are still 268 runs behind Karnataka’s first innings score.
In the other match, Jammu and Kashmir ended day 2 at 260 for 3 after dismissing Pondicherry for 343 thanks to a battling, unbeaten 96 by opener Qamran Iqbal and half-century by debutant Jatin Wadhawan (69).
Brief scores:
Karnataka 481 all out in 109.3 overs (KV Siddharth 146, Manish Pandey 156 (121b, 12×4, 10×6, K Gowtham 52, R Samarth 47, Yuvraj 5 for 93) vs Railways 213 for 3 in 65 overs (Arindam Ghosh batting 78, Vivek Singh 59, Mrunal Devdhar 56, Gowtham 3 for 71).
Pondicherry 343 all out in 104.3 overs (Paras Dogra 108 (187 balls, 12×4, 2×6), S Karthik 63 (131 balls, 5×4), Fabid Ahmed 37, Parvez Rasool 4 for 56, Umran Malik 3 for 89 ) vs Jammu & Kashmir 260 for three in 73 overs (Qamran Iqbal 96 batting (218 balls, 13×4, 2×6), Jatin Wadhawan 69 (100 balls, 10×4, 1×6), Shubham Singh Pundir 51 (88 balls, 10×6) 4), Abdul Samad 42 batting, Sagar Trivedi two for 45).
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