'Unlucky' Karnataka in a spot of bother

Bengaluru: Despite their best effort to conceal their concerns, you could hear the anxiety in the voices of Karnataka coach Yere Goud and skipper Mayank Agarwal on Monday. 

Reason being, for the second time in two Ranji Trophy games they had ended up with one point with rain playing spoilsport. With rain hampering their contest against Madhya Pradesh in Indore, Karnataka settled for one point, and then the rain seemed to follow them to Alur for their second contest against Kerala in Alur. 

A grand 50 overs of play was possible in the four days before the umpires called off the game at around lunch on the final day, leaving Goud and Co in a quandary. 

"It's less than ideal, but what can we do?!" he told DH. "We can only deal with things in our control. We came into this tournament with the mindset to go for outright wins, and that will remain the same going forward. 

"I think the weather will settle down after this, but let's see," he added. 

Karnataka take on Bihar in Patna next (from Oct 26-29) before returning to Bengaluru to play Bengal (from Nov 6-9) at the M Chinnaswamy stadium. Their final assignment before the white-ball break will be against Uttar Pradesh in Lucknow from Nov 13-16. Their next two contests (against Punjab and Haryana, respectively) will happen between January and February of 2025.

"We're in a difficult position," admitted Agarwal. "See, we won the toss and bowled first both times with an intention to get the result. This is very frustrating, but these are the cards we have been dealt."

Another aspect of such limited playing time is the lack of time to assess the quality of the newcomers in the set up. "I agree, it's tough to gauge them when they have not spent enough time in the middle, but we trust them. We trust in the work they have done to earn this chance to play for Karnataka. 

"All we need to do now is play good cricket as a team and hope we progress to the knockouts despite being in transition," he added. 

As far as alleviating some of the problems posed by the weather, Karnataka State Cricket Association president Raghuram Bhat insisted nothing could be done in this particular instance because there was no reason to predict rain this time of year. 

"No one predicted that it would rain this late in the year," he said. "Of course, we have a great Sub-Air system at the Chinnaswamy, that's the only reason the Test match (between India and New Zealand) was even possible, but we can't have that in Alur. We are looking to cover the full ground from the next time so avoid rain delays. That's all we can do."

Brief scores: At Alur: Kerala: 161/3 in 50 overs drew Karnataka. Kerala: 1 point; Karnataka: 1 pt. 

At Kolkata: Bengal drew Bihar. Bengal: 1; Bihar: 1. 

At Lucknow: Haryana: 453 all out and 72/3 in 25 overs (Mayank Shandilya 31; Shivam Sharma 2-22) drew Uttar Pradesh (O/n: 267/6): 364 all out in 93.2 overs (Aryan Juyal 119, Rinku Singh 89, Yash Dayal 41, Ankit Rajpoot 40 n.o.; Aman Kumar 2-25, Sumit Kumar 2-59, Harshal Patel 2-79, Jayant Yadav 4-102). Haryana: 3; UP: 1. 

At Mullanpur: Punjab: 277 all out and (O/n: 265/3): 329/6 decl (Jaskaranvir Singh Paul 116, Abhay Choudhary 46, Anmolpreet Singh 72, Salil Arora 27, Pukhraj Mann 27 n.o., Mayank Markhande 27 n.o.) drew Madhya Pradesh: 207 all out and 146/8 in 73 overs (Himanshu Mantri 41, Harpreet Singh 35; Arshdeep Singh 2-28, Gurnoor Brar 3-60, Sukhwinder Singh 2-19). Points: Punjab: 3; MP: 1.

Cut-off box - Mayank to lead 
Mayank Agarwal will continue to lead Karnataka for their third Ranji Trophy Elite Group C encounter against Bihar in Patna from October 26-29 reports DHNS. 
Squad for Bihar tie: Mayank Agrawal (capt) Nikin Jose SJ Smaran R Manish Pandey (vice-captain) Shreyas Gopal Sujay Sateri (wk) Hardik Raj Vyshak Vijakumar Koushik V Vidyadhar Patil Abhinav Manohar Luvnith Sisodia (wk) Kishan S Bedare Aneesh KV Mohsin Khan Abhilash Shetty.