Pandey, Nair seal spot for Karnataka

Bengaluru: Karnataka marched their way into the semifinal of Ranji Trophy with a six-wicket win over Rajasthan here at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday.  An unbeaten fifth-wicket stand of 129 runs between skipper Manish Pandey (87) and Karun Nair (61) paved the way for the hosts’ comfortable victory.  Left-arm pacer Tanveer-Ul-Haq took the sole wicket that fell on the day. Karnataka will now face the winners of Saurashtra-Uttar Pradesh match from January 24.

Karnataka’s two premier batsmen delivered when the team needed it most. After nightwatchman Ronit More perished within 30 minutes of play, Manish joined Karun at a crucial juncture when the team were reeling at 56/4.

Manish who shook off the nerves with a straight drive off Aniket Choudhary played the role of an aggressor, while Karun pulled it along. Manish hit 14 boundaries and two sixes in his 75-ball knock. Rajasthan had to blame themselves for letting Manish off the hook as Deepak Chahar dropped a catch when he was on 38.

Manish said his plan was to play an attacking game. “From the previous experience, I realised it’s important to show the intent to score runs here. Being defensive didn’t work in the past. So, I was clear in my mind to go in and look for runs, especially through boundaries,” said Manish. R. Vinay Kumar who had scored an unbeaten 83 off 144 balls in the first innings was adjudged the man of the match.

Ranji brief scores
At Nagpur:  Uttarakhand 355 and 152 for 5 in 57.1 overs Karanveer Kaushal 76; Umesh Yadav 3/22

Vidarbha First Innings 629 all out in 184 overs Wasim Jaffer 206, Sanjay Ramaswamy 141, Aditya Sarvate 102; Dhanraj Sharma 3/101, Mayank Mishra 3/110

At lucknow: Uttar Pradesh 85 and 194 all out in 72.1 overs Mohammad Saif 48; Dharmendrasinh Jadeja 4/53, Chetan Sakariya 3-38 v Saurashtra 208 and 195 for 2 in 67 overs Harvik Desai 83 (not out) Snell Patel 72

At Bengaluru: Karnataka 263 and 185/4 in 47.5 overs (Manish Pandey 87 (not out), Karun Nair 61 (not out) beat Rajasthan 224 and 222 by six wickets