Ranji Trophy: 13-14: Jharkhand vs Karnataka

Match Summary: Jharkhand (364 & 215/5) drew with Karnataka (424/7d)
Points: Jharkhand 1, Karnataka 3

After a washout against Delhi, this was effectively the first game of the season for Jharkhand. In terms of personnel Karnataka would have been considered a stronger side. Like most Ranji games this turned out to be a battle for the 1st innings lead.

Karnataka won the toss and put Jharkhand in. It was attritional batting from the Jharkhand team with runs coming at a slow pace. They ended up at 364 with the usual suspect Saurabh Tiwary & captain Shahbaz Nadeem getting half centuries along with new import Bhavin Thaker. Karnataka scored at a much faster pace and managed to go past the Jharkhand score with good contibutions from Mayank Agarwal and Manish Pandey. Having got the important 1st innings lead, Karnataka declared hoping for a second innings collapse which did not happen. Solid innings from Ishank Jaggi & Saurabh Tiwary prevented any further damage. And the game meandered onto a draw.

Key point of interest was the comeback of Varun Aaron after a long injury layoff. He put in a decent number of overs but just got one wicket. While Saurabh Tiwary continues from where he left last year. The lack of success of the spin twins Nadeem & Sunny Gupta would be a cause of concern though.

Season Stats
Leading Scorer: Saurabh Tiwary – 118 runs
Most Wickets: Rahul Shukla – 3 wickets

Standings – 2 points after 2 games; Quotient – 0.637; 7th in the group. Well the team needs to start pulling up its socks if they are to remain in contention for a knock-out berth.

Coming Up Next: Away vs Haryana. The Lahli pitch should be of interest to the likes of Aaron and Shukla. A result is a distinct possibility. Lets hope it goes Jharkhand’s way.