Ranji Trophy: Rain wrecks Karnataka again

Bengaluru: Heavy overnight rain which continued to lash the City in various intensities till Sunday morning saw the third day's play of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group C encounter between Karnataka and Kerala at the Alur 1 ground called off without a ball being bowled.

Like the opening two days where players were greeted with patches of wetness in the outfield that resulted in play being severely truncated, Sunday too was no different with various parts of the ground wet due to the overnight downpour. 

Although the ground staff had done their job of covering the entire ground and there's a decent enough drainage system in place, the preceding rain over the previous week that caused a lot of damage ended up getting worse with Saturday night's deluge.

The situation was so bad that despite the sun coming out around noon, it was not enough to dry the wet patches with water stagnating in some places. With rain lashing the venue in the evening, it'll be a miracle if the final day too witnesses any action. 

This, of course, means bad news for eight-time champions Karnataka, who were forced to split a point each with Madhya Pradesh owing to inclement weather in Indore. Karnataka now stare at a similar scenario unless something extraordinary happens on Monday.

Firstly, a full day's play looks unlikely. And even if that happens, they need to bowl out Kerala (161/3) very quickly and try and surpass them to gain three points for the first innings lead. Obviously, that looks improbable considering Kerala are coming after a thumping win in their opener.

Two points from their opening two matches could seriously jeopardise Karnataka's chances of progressing to the knockout quarterfinals.         

Brief scores: At Alur: Kerala: 161/3 in 50 overs vs Karnataka. No play on Day 3.

At Kolkata: Bengal vs Bihar. No play on Day 3.

At Lucknow: Haryana (O/n: 431/9): 453 all out in 191.2 overs (Ankit Kumar 77, Himanshu Rana 114, Dheeru Singh 103, Sumit Kumar 61, Yuzvendra Chahal 48; Yash Dayal 2-56, Vipraj Nigam 3-129, Shivam Sharma 4-95) vs Uttar Pradesh: 267/6 in 70 overs (Aryan Juyal 118 n.o., Rinku Singh 89; Aman Kumar 2-17, Harshal Patel 2-53, Jayant Yadav 2-77).

At Mullanpur: Punjab: 277 all out & 265/3 in 90 overs (Jaskaranvir Singh Paul 115 n.o., Abhay Choudhary 46, Anmolpreet Singh 72) vs Madhya Pradesh: 207 all out.