Bengaluru: For the second time in two weeks Karnataka find themselves on a sticky wicket against an opposition they should have ideally had on the mat.
At the Lalbhai Contractor stadium in Surat on Saturday, skipper Nikin Jose would have felt the pressure of the stand-in gig as Karnataka ended up trailing the Railways by 190 runs in their Group C Ranji Trophy tie with two days left in the contest.
Shouldered by their pace unit, Karnataka were able to bowl a relatively inexperienced Railways unit out for 155 in the first innings, but the visitors’ batting display was about as bad as they put up a meek 174 all out in 50.5 overs.
That they crossed Railways’ score in and of itself was a miracle as they were stuttering at 90 for 6 at the end of the opening day. Luckily, the tail came up with a few useful runs and got them over the hump despite left-arm spinners Akash Pandey (5/63) and Ayan Chaudhari (4/39) picking up nine wickets between them.
Armed with a measly 19-run lead, Karnataka took the field in hope that the Railways’ batters would fold. They didn’t, and ended up scoring 209 for 8 at stumps from 62 overs.
Railways score came courtesy Mohammad Saif’s 51 and Suraj Ahuju’s 48, and the rest with everyone chipping in with what they could on a pitch which has already begun to take turn.
Evidently, Karnataka misread the pitch because they came into the contest armed with one full-time spinner. That void was somewhat filled by R Samarth as the top-order batter, who bowls off-spin time to time, sent down 10 overs for 32 runs and a wicket.