Meerut: Some fine bowling from all the Uttar Pradesh bowlers gave the team a first innings lead of 102 runs against Karnataka in a Group B Ranji Match being played at Bhamashah Stadium, Meerut. UP were 55/3 in their second innings when the play ended on Day two.
Earlier in the day, UP started their innings at 273/9 and could only add ten more runs to their total before the last wicket fell.
Karnataka would have been confident about their chances of overpowering the UP total in the first innings but the start jolted their plan as they lost their first wicket with no run on the board.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar who has been great for UP with both bat and ball in recent times started his spell wonderfully well picking wicket in his first and second over. Karnataka struggling at 2-6 would have hoped that their experienced batsman Robin Uthappa would bail them out of trouble, but that didn’t happen as he went for only 12 runs against his name.
Some respite came for Karnataka in the form of a 93 run stand between Manish Pandey (54) and Amit Verma (52), together the two took the score past the 100 mark but both got out soon after that.
Stuart Binny (21) and M Gautam (24*) did bat well but that was not good enough as Karnata lost their last four wickets for only 11 runs.
UP after getting a healthy lead would have hoped for a solid finish to the day but that didn’t happen as three of their top order batsmen got out before the end of day’s play. Mohammad Kaif (18) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1*) will start the innings for UP on the third day.
Brief Score:
Uttar Pradesh: 283 & 55/3 (Kaif 18*)
Karnataka: 181 (Pandey 54, Verma 52, Bhuvneshwar 5-36)
By Indian Sports News Network