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Karthik’s late charge sparkles day of bad light
Early morning fog delayed the proceedings for around two hours on the fourth and last day of the Ranji Trophy match between Delhi and Tamil Nadu and took away the prospects of an exciting finish to the match.
Chasing a target of 218, Tamil Nadu finished the game at 129 for three and settled for a draw.
Going into the last day, Delhi were 139 runs ahead with five wickets in hand and early fall of wickets, which eventually happened, could have given the visiting team an opportunity to go for the kill in a similar fashion as they had gone and nearly chased down the 146-run target in 13 overs against Haryana in their last match in pursuit of five points.
After the visibility improved, overnight batsmen Pawan Negi and Puneet Bisht started in contrasting styles. While Negi was little defensive, Bisht didn’t hold his strokes back. But the 72-run stand between them broke soon when Jagannathan Kaushik dismissed Negi at the score of 265 (a lead of 171 runs).
Wickets started to fell quickly after that and Delhi were dismissed for 311 runs. In between, Bisht (53) completed his first half-century of the season and Pradeep Sangwan (27) played a cameo hitting a six and two boundaries. Tamil Nadu skipper Laxmipathy Balaji (4 for 65) came up with a good last spell removing the tail in his three successive overs.
With a 218-run target on board and 49 overs (including 15 mandatory overs) of the day remaining, Tamil Nadu didn’t show the same audacity as they had shown against Haryana and decided not to go for the chase. Their decision looked very considerate in the circumstances as their batting mainstay Abhinav Mukund was injured.
And when Tamil Nadu lost both their openers — Murali Vijay and Arun Karthik — early on, the match seemed to take a dull turn. But a fiery spell of fast bowling by Delhi medium pacer Parvinder Awana (2 for 32) and a late charge by Tamil Nadu wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik made the finish exciting.
Karthik, initially, seemed to play the waiting game in the middle but when the match looked to be set for a draw, he suddenly changed his gears and started dealing in boundaries only. The Tamil Nadu batsman was particularly severe on left-arm spinner Vikas Mishra as he collected five boundaries and a six from him.
The flurry of boundaries made Delhi captain Mithun Manhas bring Awana back into the attack and having already taken the wicket of Arun Karthik in his first spell, he looked high on testosterone when he came to bowl the second spell. He bowled fast - one ball was recorded at 141 mph - and ended dangerous looking Karthik’s innings.
With nothing left in the match and visibility diminishing fast, both the teams agreed to call off the match just after the first mandatory over was bowled.
Brief Scores:
Delhi: 212 & 311 (Puneet Bisht 53, L Balaji 4 for 65) drew with Tamil Nadu: 306 & 129/3 (Dinesh Karthik 52, Baba Aparajith 44 batting, Parvinder Awana 2 for 32).
