da pixbet： The third day of the Ranji Trophy semifinal between Hyderabad andKarnataka at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Thursday began with an air ofexpectancy hanging around as VVS Laxman resumed his innings at346
Sankhya Krishnan13-Apr-2000The third day of the Ranji Trophy semifinal between Hyderabad andKarnataka at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Thursday began with an air ofexpectancy hanging around as VVS Laxman resumed his innings at346. Karnataka went in straightaway for the third new ball after 180overs and Laxman got to his 350 in the second over of the day with his52nd boundary. Ganesh was bowling to him with four men patrolling thefence but the wide arc between deep backward square and mid on wasopen country. Laxman just eased one off his legs through mid wicketand the ball trickled to the boundary before the two convergingfielders could reach it. Fiaz Ahmed was gaining in confidence at theother end, swatting a short one from Ganesh to the mid wicket fence.But Laxman’s long hand ended at 683 when he mistimed a pull off Prasadto deposit it tamely into the hands of substitute KN Ramesh at midon. His 353 (559 balls, 758 minutes) included a startling 220 runs infours and sixes. Hyderabad decided to rub salt in the open gushingwound by prolonging their innings further and both Fiaz and NP Singhpicked up more boundaries. Prasad got his fifth wicket of the inningswhen he had Fiaz caught behind by Thilak Naidu for 31 upon whichAzharuddin finally decided to close shop just under an hour into themorning session with the scoreboard reading 711/8.Hyderabad’s new ball duo of NP Singh and Fiaz Ahmed started with aflurry of no balls. A loud shout for a catch at forward short legagainst Arun Kumar was turned down as he played forward with bat andpad close together. Mithun Beerala wasted little time in gaining theascendancy as he punched Fiaz to the cover boundary off the backfoot. Beerala had a lucky break when Daniel Manohar at forward shortleg instinctively got his hands to a flick off NP Singh but wasn’table to hold on. Azhar brought on Venkatapathy Raju from the BEML endin the eighth over and both batsmen treated him withcircumspection. The seam bowlers continued to be plagued byoverstepping and with Beerala playing some elegant drives through theoff side, Karnataka had galloped to 84/0 in 17 overs at lunch.Arun Kumar cover drove Satwalkar to the fence to bring up the hundredof the innings and complete 3000 runs in his 45th Ranji match. Beeralahas been very much the form player for Karnataka in this, his debutseason and he beat Arun Kumar to his half century by picking the gapbetween mid on and short midwicket to precision. He also favoured thecut shot wide of point. Kanwaljit Singh was introduced belatedly intothe attack and in his fifth over he got the break as Beerala flickedone straight into the hands of Azhar at short midwicket for 74.Arun Kumar followed him back to the pavilion at 190, caught at thewicket off Kanwaljit for 71 although he seemed visiblydisappointed. Rowland Barrington (52) and Vijay Bharadwaj (38)steadied the boat with an unbroken 79 run third wicketpartnership. Azharuddin came on to bowl his off breaks with sevenovers to stumps and a chest high full toss was stroked to the coverboundary by Barrington who duly completed his fifty. Bharadwaj had astroke of fortune when he played forward to Raju but was unable tosmother the spin and the ball flew to Nandakishore at silly point whoput it down. But he regained his composure with two boundaries to longon and long off in the same over.In any other circumstances, Karnataka’s final score of 269/2 wouldhave been redoubtable but in the context of the match it was a meredribble in the canvas. Karnataka will be soothened by the memory of aRanji Trophy match some eighteen summers ago when they conceded afirst innings lead after making 700 plus but it doesn’t happen toooften to inspire confidence. The conditions here are still perfect forbatting though. The bounce is good, the ball is coming onto the batwell, the wicket is still holding up and is taking turn only inpatches but not consistently enough to trouble the batsmen.