The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Thilak Naidu hits century

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Sport - Cricket

Thilak Naidu hits century

Special Correspondent

Cricket / Himachal Pradesh in a spot of bother

— Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

CENTURY MAKER: Thilak Naidu carried on the good work of Rahul Dravid, as Karnataka took control against Himachal.

BANGALORE: Himachal Pradesh found itself staring at the dark end of the tunnel against host Karnataka. At stumps on the second day it was reduced to 117 for four chasing the former champion’s first innings score of 452 for nine declared in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group ‘A’ league at the Chinnaswamy stadium here on Friday.

Blistering start

HP skipper Sandeep Sharma had talked of “seizing the opportunity” and it looked as though the side would make a match of it with a blistering start — 47 runs coming in the first ten overs. But a sharp catch by Dravid at slips to send back Sandeep Sharma off N.C. Aiyappa checked the visitor.

Manish Gupta looked compact despite surviving some close shouts even as wickets fell at the other end. Sangram Singh, Paras Dogra and Manish fell to Kumble, Joshi and Vinay Kumar and at 90 for four HP was in trouble before Ajay Manu and wicketkeeper batsmen Maninder Bisla survived some close shouts to fight another day.

Classy knock

The morning clearly belonged to Thilak Naidu. The dapper Karnataka wicket-keeper produced scintillating shots and stepped out to the spinners to reach to his eighth Ranji hundred.

Naidu’s 105 was studded with 16 boundary hits and one over it (off Sarandeep) and came off 134 balls. He was snapped behind trying to step out to left-arm spinner Vishal Bhatia. This was his fifth century in Bangalore and fourth at the Chinnaswamy stadium.

Yere Goud was painstakingly slow before he decided to step out and holed to midwicket. At the other end all-rounder Akhil and Sunil Joshi fell in a hurry while Anil Kumble got a shooter from Vikramjit Malik to be cleaned up.

Negative line

Kumble declared after an hour’s play into the second session.

Vishal Bhatia, who bowled a negative line to curtail the run-rate, picked up six wickets for 129 runs in his 45 overs, his eighth five-wicket haul.

The scores:

Karnataka — 1st innings: Barrington Rowland c Bosla b Vikramjit Malik 7, K.B. Pawan b Bhatia 56, R. Dravid b Malik 121, C. Raghu c Mukesh b Bhatia 58, Y. Goud c Dogra b Bhatia 23, Thilak Naidu b Bhatia 105, B. Akhil c & b Bhatia 22, S. Joshi c Thakur b Bhatia 14, A. Kumble b Malik 1, R. Vinay Kumar (n.o) 11, N.C. Aiyappa (n.o) 6; Extras: (b-15, lb-5, nb-6, w-1) 28. Total (for nine wickets decl., in 139 overs) 452.

Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-150, 3-242, 4-257, 5-342, 6-403, 7-423, 8-427, 9-434.

HP bowling: Thakur 33-5-82-0, Malik 36-11-103-3, Sangram 4-1-12-0, Sarandeep 19-3-90-0, Bhatia 45-10-129-6, Mukesh 1-0-10-0, Sharma 1-0-6-0.

HP — 1st innings: M. Gupta c Thilak Naidu b Joshi 42, S. Sharma c Dravid b Aiyappa 21, Sangram c Dravid b Kumble 7, P. Dogra lbw b Vinay 3, A. Manu (batting) 16, M. Bisla (batting) 11; extras: (b-8, lb-4, penalty runs 5) 17. Total: (for four wickets in 40 overs) 117.

Fall of wickets: 1-47, 2-76, 3-79, 4-90.

Karnataka bowling: Vinay Kumar 10-4-20-1, Aiyappa 7-0-29-1, Kumble 11-2-38-1, Joshi 8-3-8-1, Akhil 4-3-5-0.

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