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Vinay Kumar took the crucial wicket of Gokul Sharma. © BCCL
Karnataka more or less sealed their 2014-15 Ranji trophy semi-final berth on day three of their quarter-final against Assam at the Ahalyabhai Holkar Stadium by bundling out the Group C team for 185 to take a first-innings lead of 267 and then extending it to 404 by the close of play.
As has been the case on most occasions this season, the Karnataka bowlers wreaked havoc in the opposition camp with Sreenath Arvind and Shreyas Gopal claiming three wickets each, while skipper Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun chipped in with two each, before KL Rahul breezed his way to an 80-ball 73.
Assam, starting the day at 58 for 3, had resisted for a while with overnight batsmen Gokul Sharma and Arun Karthik adding 49 runs in 13 overs in the morning session, before Karthik was picked up for 33 by Shreyas at forward short leg.
Tarjinder Singh, Assam's highest run-getter this season, took his team to lunch along with Gokul without much trouble, but after the break, Karnataka dictated terms. Five overs into the second session, Vinay, who had bowled a probing line in the first session, provided the all-important wickets by removing Tarjinder 30 and Gokul in an over. Two overs later, Arvind repeated Vinay's feat and claimed Syed Mohammad (1) and Abu Nechim (0) in the space of five balls. Mithun took the last two wickets to wrap up Assam's innings, much to the delight of the sparse crowd in attendance. Assam lost their last five wickets for just 18 runs.
As expected, Karnataka opted against enforcing the follow-on, similar to what they had done against Uttar Pradesh in their last league game, and instead chose to build on their lead. Robin Uthappa, who kept wickets in place of CM Gautam on day two, did not open the innings, and in his place Ravikumar Samarth walked out to the middle along with KL Rahul.
While Samarth took his time to score his runs, Rahul put on a show by elegantly driving the length balls to the cover boundary and pulling the short ones effortlessly to the ropes. Rahul raced to his fifty off just 59 balls, with the help of nine boundaries and a six but got out for 73 playing an on-drive straight to short mid-on off Syed. Manish Pandey failed to utilise the chance to get some runs, as he was castled by Krishna Das for a nine-ball duck. Samarth (54*), who had got out for 46 in the first innings, went past the fifty-run mark in 119 balls, and along with Uthappa (6*) took Karnataka to 137 for 2 at stumps.
Brief Scores: Karnataka 452 (Robin Uthappa 153, KL Rahul 91; Krishna Das 4/101) and 137 for 2 (KL Rahul 73; Krishna Das 1/17) lead Assam 185 (Gokul Sharma 58; Sreenath Arvind 3/36) by 404 runs
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