CHENNAI: For a six-time Ranji Trophy champion side, Karnataka’s strategy against Jammu and Kashmir has been baffling. On Friday, when they had the opportunity to enforce a follow-on, they chose to bat. In this truncated format, every point counts and not going for an outright win may come back to bite them. Admittedly, they were one bowler short with Ronit More injured, but having bowled just 30 overs, they had enough firepower to play on.
Justifying the team’s decision to bat, bowling coach Sreenath Arvind explained, “We considered the option of follow-on but Prasidh had bowled a long spell (12 overs) and Ronit was injured. This meant we had to go in with just two fast bowlers (Vidhyadhar Patil, the other pacer). So we thought of setting a big target and bowling out J&K.”
On the penultimate day of their second league Ranji Trophy fixture here, Karnataka were again found wanting in the killer instinct. With KV Siddharth (72, 72b, 8x4, 1x6) accelerating the scoring in the morning, one would have expected them to send J&K out to bat with a 450-run cushion, an hour before lunch. Instead, they batted on, until four overs before lunch, declaring at 298/3 with a lead of 507 runs. Karun Nair helped himself to an unbeaten half -century (71 n.o).
In hindsight, Karnatkaa will have a lot to ponder after they let J&K off the hook. At stumps, the batting side had put up a fighting 190/4 in 58 overs, going into the final day with a deficit of 317 runs.
J&K were off to a shaky start when Qamran Iqbal was trapped in front by Prasidh Krishna in the opening over, leaving them at 11/1 at lunch. The other opener Jatin Wadhwan (15) and Fazil Rashid (65) figured in a 35-run partnership before leggie Shreyas Gopal (3/90) got Wadhwan to edge to Devdutt Padikkal at first slip. Shreyas dismissed Shubham Pundir next and J&K were 57/3.
Rashid and skipper Ian Chauhan (65 n.o) took the fight to the Karnataka camp. A pitch which was slowing down helped their cause further. Rashid brought up his half-century with a maximum off Shreyas, but the spinner had the last laugh, when the wicketkeeper-batsman was left clueless with a delivery that kicked up. He went for the defence on the front foot but handed a catch to Manish Pandey.
That was the only wicket to fall in the final session as Chauhan and Abdul Samad (21 n.o) figured in an unfinished partnership for the fifth wicket yielded 53 runs.
The duo went after the spinners. Samad scored back-to-back maximum’s off Shreyas. Chauhan added to Shreyas’ misery with another huge hit in the same over, which also signalled his half-century.
Karnataka will look to wrap up the match early on the final day, but for that, they will have to first break the threatening partnership.
