Bengaluru: It was a situation befitting Manish Pandey's calibre and the talented batsman, known for his penchant for strokeplay, eschewed his natural aggression to put Karnataka in a position of strength against Odisha in the Group 'A' Ranji Trophy encounter, on Friday .
With their bowlers, led by Abhimanyu Mithun having skittled the hosts for 226 the previous day, Karnataka, resuming at 22/0 assumed control as Pandey and another youngster in KL Rahul guided the visitors during the course of the impressive 114-run third wicket partnership at the DRIEMS ground at Tangi, near Cuttack.
At close, with Pandey unbeaten on 108 (198b, 13x4, 2x6) after Rahul fell for a patient 67 (144b, 11x4), Karnataka had moved to 288 for four, a lead of 62 with skipper C.M. Gautam (11) at the crease.
With the ball darting around in the morning session, it was imperative that the visitors kept their cool but opener Mayank Agarwal departed in the eighth over falling to Deepak Behera, adding just 12 to his overnight 11. The other opener Robin Uthappa held fort for a while before being trapped lbw by Basant Mohanty for 33 before the lunch interval.
This was the when Pandey joined Rahul and the two youngsters opted a cautious approach while taking full toll of the loose deliveries.
In the past, the flashy Pandey has been known to give away his wicket in a rush of blood but on this day his temperament was admirable as he held his ground and imbibed the same in his younger partner.
Pandey was not overly aggressive but runs still flowed from the right-hander’s bat as he clubbed 13 boundaries and two sixes to leave Rahul trailing in the wake. The latter was content to play the second fiddle before edging Biplab
Samantray to Subhrajit Sahoo behind the stumps.
Kunal Kapoor, who joined Pandey put his head down as his senior partner farmed the strike and the duo added 71 while guiding Karnataka past the opponent’s total. An unfortunate mix-up, however, resulted in Kapoor being run out even as Pandey completed his hundred and looked good for a big one as the visitors will look to bat Odisha out of the game.
Scoreboard Odisha (1st innings): 226 Karnataka (1st innings, o/n 22/0): Robin Uthappa lbw Mohanty 33, Mayank Agarwal c Samantray b D Behera 23, KL Rahul c S Sahoo b Samantray 67, Manish Pandey (batting) 108, Kunal Kapoor (run out) 25, C.M. Gautam (batting) 11, Extras (b9, bl1, nb6, pen5) 21 Total (for 4 wickets; 92 overs) 288 FoW: 1-43, 2-72, 3-186, 4-257 Bowling: B Mohanty 27-6-78-1, S Pradhan 11-2-47-0, D Behera 21-545-1, A Sahoo 7-1-27-0, B Samantray 12-1-47-1, N Behera 14-3-29-0 RANJI ROUND-UP Group A At Mumbai: Mumbai (o/n 254/8) 261 all out in 93.5 overs (Wasim Jaffer 139, Shardul Thakur 26; Sandeep Singh 4-35, Ravi Jangid 3-48, Akshay Wakhare 2-65) & 179 for 1 in 36 overs (Aditya Tare 110 batting, Ajinkya Rahane 62 batting) vs Vidarbha: 113 all out in 41.4 overs (Rashmi Ranjan Parida 34 n.o.; Zaheer Khan 2-39, Akbar Khan 2-28; Shardul Thakur 3-40) At Rohtak: Haryana: 163 & 117 for 5 in 40 overs (Avi Barot 31, Nitin Saini 25; Sandeep Sharma 3-26) vs Punjab (o/n 50/3); 184 all out in 57.4 overs (Gurkeerat Singh 51, Mayank Sidhana 43; Harshal Patel 4-60, Sanjay Budhwar 4-46) At Jamshedpur: Jharkhand (o/n 194/5): 289 all out in 120.5 overs (Saurabh Tiwary 91, Rameez Nemat 78, Shahbhaz Nadeem 34; Jasprit Bumrah 5-79, Akshar Patel 2-58) vs Gujarat: 168 for 2 in 57 overs (Samit Gohel 66 batting, Parthiv Patel 75 batting) Group B At Chennai: Tamil Nadu (o/n 268/2): 565 for 8 decl. in 158.2 overs (Abhinav Mukund 240, Dinesh Karthik 133, Murali Vijay 62, S Badrinath 56, Baba Aparajith 50; Jayadev Unadkat 4-99, Kamlesh Makvana 2-116) vs Saurashtra: 12 for 1 in 5 overs At Delhi: Bengal (o/n 242/3) 431 all out in 166.2 overs (Arindam Das 165, Saurashish Lahiri 108, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 28; Koteswar Rao 4123, Rahul Kanojia 2-91) vs Services: 39/0 in 11 overs At Jaipur: Uttar Pradesh: 226 & 46 for 2 in 12 overs vs Rajasthan (o/n 0/1) 185 all out in 72.5 overs (Siddarth Saraf 56, Hrishikesh Kanitkar 38, Ramesh Powar 32; Amit Mishra 7-59, Ali Murtaza 2-20) At Vadodara: Baroda: 152 & (o/n 9/0) 244 all out (Yusuf Pathan 104 n.o., Aditya Waghmode 28; Jalaj Saxena 782, Jatin Saxena 2-66) vs Madhya Pradesh: 60 & 58 for 5 in 28 overs (Bhargav Bhatt 3-25, Ketul Patel 2-14)
