Bengaluru: Young Ronit More wreaked havoc on Haryana as the Karnataka bowlers put their team within sniffing distance of victory on a day when 15 wickets fell at the Bansi Lal stadium at Rohtak on Sunday .
Left to chase a small 97-run target, Karnataka stumbled in their now familiar fashion to slip to 62 for four in 23 overs, needing a further 35 runs on the final morning when the hosts will be fired up in what will go down as an exciting contest. At close, skipper C.M. Gautam was on five and Stuart Binny, yet to face a delivery, with all the hopes and pressure riding on them.
In a match dominated by the medium-pacers, the visitors' led by More, playing just his third match and first in almost a year, skittled Haryana for a mere 105 with the youngster grabbing 5-20 off 14 overs with six of them being maidens on the third morning.
Having been bowled out in the second over of the day for 256, a meagre lead of nine after resuming at 253 for nine, with Harshal Patel getting his sixth, the Karnataka pacers got into the act after opener Avi Barot was run out in the second over for nought.
More then came up with a sensational display of fast bowling removing Sunny Singh and Yatharth Tomar while Binny got rid off first innings centurion Nitin Saini cheaply .
Though the other opener Rahul Dewan (31) hung on grimly he fell to More and the visitors bowlers scenting blood were out for the kill.
At 65 for six, it appeared to be an early end but Rahul Tewatia and Sachin Rana baulked them before More dismissed Rana and then sent back Patel for his maiden five-for.
Karnataka, requiring less than 100, started disastrously losing Mayank Agarwal in the second over and Kunal Kapoor in the ninth before staging a mini recovery but the twin exits of Manish Pandey and first innings hero KL Rahul (29), who was unfortunately run out left them stuttering with victory 35 runs away on the morrow.
With their bowlers having taken them to the thresh ( old, Gautam and his remaining batsmen need to see off the hosts' threat and pull it through.
Scoreboard Haryana (1st innings): 247 Karnataka (1st innings, o/n 253/9): Abrar Kazi c Saini b Patel 12, HS Sharath (not out) 2. Extras (b6, lb8, w5, nb4) 23 Total ( all out; 93.2 overs) 256 Fow: 9-246 Bowling: Harshal Patel 28.2-10-556, Sanjay Budhwar 15-4-44-0, Ashish Hooda 17-2-5102, Sachin Rana 22-3-52-2, Jayant Yadav 5-020-0, Rahul Tewatia 6-1-20-0 Haryana (2nd innings): Avi Barot (run out) 0, Rahul Dewan c Gautam b More 31, Sunny Singh c Kazi b More 4, Yatharth Tomar b More 0, Nitin Saini c Pandey b Binny 11, Jayant Yadav c Gautam b Mithun 6, Sachin Rana c Agarwal b More 10, Rahul Tewatia lbw Kazi 15, Harshal Patel b More 0, Ashish Hooda c Pandey b Sharath 1, Sanjay Budhwar (not out) 3.
Extras (b7, lb9, w6, nb2) 24 To tal (all out; 48.3 overs) 105 FoW: 1-2, 2-14, 3-18, 4-45, 5-65, 665, 7-80, 8-80, 9-93 Bowling: Abhimanyu Mithun 13-329-1, Ronit More 14-6-20-5, HS Sharath 9-3-21-1, Stuart Binny 11-319-1, Manish Pandey 1-1-0-0, Abrar Kazii 0.3-0-0-1 Karnataka (2nd innings): Mayank Agarwal c Barot b Hooda 1, KL Rahul (run out) 29, Kunal Kapoor c Tewatia b Patel 10, Manish Pandey c Tewatia b Patel 17, CM Gautam (batting) 5, Stuart Binny (batting) 0 Total (for 4 wits; 23 overs) 62 FoW: 1-1, 2-20, 3-55, 4-59 Bowling: Hashal Patel 11-2-26-2, Ashish Hooda 6-2-20-1, Sanjay Budhwar 6-0-16-0 RANJI ROUND-UP Group A At Mumbai: Jharkhand: 351 & 176 for 5 in 65 overs (Bhavin Thaker 39, Rameez Nemat 32, Saurabh Tiwary 38, Ishank Jaggi 51, Javed Khan 2-23) vs Mumbai (o/n 210/5): 265 all out in 91.5 overs (Aditya Tare 67, Hiken Shah 58, Suryakumar Yadav 63; Varun Aaron 4-42, Shahbaz Nadeem i 3-65, Samar Quadri 2-36) t At Mohali: Punjab 184 & 330 for 1 in 73 overs (Jiwanjot Singh 188 batting, Uday Kaul 88 batting, Manan Vohra 52) vs Vidarbha (o/n 332/7): 360 all out in 128 overs (Faiz Fazal 99, Ravi Jangid 104, i Urvesh Patel 42, Amol Jungade 59; Sandeep Sharma 5-90, VRV SIngh 4-89) At Sambalpur: Delhi: 442 & 49 for 2 in 12 overs (Virender Sehwag 32 batting) vs Odisha (o/n 121/3): 379 (Natraj Behera 158, Govind Podder 34, Biplab Samantray 48, Abhilash Mallick 71; Parvinder Awana 5-97, i Varun Sood 3-67) Group B At Ghaziabad: Services: 164 & (o/n 19/0): 191 all out in 57.5 overs (Rajat Paliwal 95, Shadab Nazar 29; RP Singh 2-72, Amit Mishra 2-18, Imtiaz Ahmed 3-16, Piyush Chawla 2-57) lost to Uttar Pradesh: 369 by an innings and 14 runs UP: 7 points, Services: 0 At Chennai: Baroda: 162 & 73 for 1 in 33 overs (Dhiren Mistry 29 batting) vs Tamil Nadu (o/n 101/3): 233 all out in 94.4 overs (Dinesh Karthik 92, Baba Indrajith 38; Yusuf Pathan 6-84, Bhargav Bhatt 3-79) At Delhi: Railways: 306 vs Bengal (o/n 65/1): 252 for 7 in 128 overs (Gitimoy Basu 56, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 87 batting), Arindam Das 26, Saurashish Lahiri 25; Anureet Singh 4-87) At Gwalior: Madhya Pradesh: 115 & (o/n 121/2): 314 all out in 89.3 overs (Naman Ojha 137, Jalaj Saxena 65, Devendra Bundela 54; Pankaj Singh 382, Ritu Raj Singh 4-74, Ramesh Powar 2-56) vs Rajasthan: 282 & 77 for 3 in 22.4 overs (Robin Bist 39, Vineet Saxena 29; Ishwar Pandey 2-28)
