Ranji Trophy: Karnataka start campaign with crushing win over Punjab

Hubballi: Karnataka huffed and puffed to the finish line in sight but the largely smooth-running train chugged along to a convincing seven-wicket win over Punjab in their opening Ranji Trophy Group C encounter here on Monday.

Novice spinners Shubhang Hegde (3/89) and Rohit Kumar AC (3/101), who seemed beset by a bout of nerves on the moving day, showed wonderful character to bounce back on the final day, bagging three wickets amongst them in an entertaining first session to lay the groundwork for a thumping win at the KSCA Stadium.

Local boy Rohit, making his debut, got the first breakthrough that Karnataka were desperately seeking after overnight batters Mandeep Singh and Nehal Wadhera safely negotiated the opening 55 minutes through sheer gumption. Karnataka’s pace trio of Vidwath Kaverapppa, first-innings hero V Koushik and Vyshak V made the most of the morning breeze and moisture in the wicket with a testing spells. Edges fell short, there were constant leg-before appeals, some very vehement, but Mandeep and Wadhera kept their composure to thwart Karnataka.

Karnataka needed a moment of magic and the 23-year-old Rohit, who learned his craft at this very ground, delivered it. Bowling with a nice rhythm and landing the ball just short of a length that had the batters constantly guessing, Rohit crashed through the defences of a caught-in-two-minds Mandeep in the 81st over. Instantly, his team-mates rushed to congratulate him while Mandeep sat crestfallen.

One wicket then led to two more with Shubhang doing the damage. The 22-year-old, also a left-armer like Rohit, kept repeating the same mistake of Sunday where he just kept firing the ball in at speed. Like Sunday, he kept going for runs.

Then, out of nowhere, he figured the mistake he was committing; he cut down the pace and bowled a tad shorter. The rewards were instant. Wadhera’s attempted flick ended up in a simple return catch, and in the very next over Prerit Dutta was caught plumb leg-before to a nice arm-ball, Punjab now in danger of an innings defeat at 285/6.

Punjab, who have never beaten Karnataka outright in nine previous attempts, however refused to surrender and the tail wagged a lot to delay the inevitable.

Wicketkeeper Gitansh Khera smacked 43, Mayank Markande hit 36, 10th man Arshdeep Singh smashed a 34-ball 36 while last man Baltej Singh cracked a 10-ball 22 as Punjab managed to muster 413 all out in 114.4 overs, setting Karnataka a target of 52 runs with little over a session remaining.

Karnataka’s goal was to get those runs with all wickets intact as that would have fetched them a bonus point (total 7 points). But it wasn’t to be as skipper Mayank Agarwal got a pair, falling for a golden duck in the second innings.

In the very next over, Nikin Jose SJ also perished for a duck as Punjab tried to make life as hard as possible for Karnataka. They too appealed for anything that hit the pad while the close-in fielders kept bantering constantly but Karnataka eventually coasted home (52/3), posting their sixth win over Punjab to kick off their 2023-24 campaign on a high.