Delhi throw chance to salvage tie

His intentions were noble: nine times out of ten he would have whacked it over the cover boundary. But when your form is as fickle as the tr...

His intentions were noble: nine times out of ten he would have whacked it over the cover boundary. But when your form is as fickle as the traffic on Bangalore roads, you don’t rely completely on guts. Virender Sehwag faced the new ball – okay it was two balls old when Shikhar Dhawan got out and he came in —- and started driving, cutting and pulling immediately; until Akhil came in.

The Karnataka seamer’s pace isn’t commensurate with his well-built frame, but his ball cut in a fraction and did the trick. Sehwag’s off-stump was uprooted and from there, Delhi’s chances to do something ‘extraordinary’ on the last day disappeared. The match practically ended at 11.30 am; from there on it was never about chasing 306, it was about salvaging a draw.

When a team plays bad cricket, Lady Luck seldom sits by its side. Delhi had to see the two rough decisions from umpire Suhas Phadkar and when Aakash Chopra fell to one of those, Delhi’s fate was sealed. Delhi lost by 167 runs, 25 minutes after tea.

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Sunil Joshi couldn’t take one more wicket on Friday to surpass another left-arm spinner Raghuram Bhatt’s record of 343 wickets to become the highest wicket-taker for Karnataka, but his match figures of 9/97 meant his side is in reckoning for the semi-finals.

Any target in excess of 300 is a big ask when batting fourth, but a revision of cricketing basics and proper choice of shots could have saved them. Out of the minimum required 69 overs to be bowled, they had faced 60.4; it was just someone who could negotiate another hour. By denying Karnataka two further points, they still stood with an outside chance of making it to the last four.

Karnataka had made a sporting declaration after batting the first hour with their score on 280/8. At little over four runs needed for the visitors to get four points, it was a fair call. Only, trust the Delhi players to make a hash of things.

Brief scores

Karnataka 283 and 280/8 decl (Naidu 58, Somasundar 54; Nanda 3/76, Sehwag 2/63) beat Delhi 258 & 138 (Chopra 37, Sehwag 18, Manhas 31; Kumble 3/63, Joshi 3/24) by 167 runs.

Elsewhere…

In Kolkata

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Tamil Nadu 218 and 423 for 7 decl beat Bengal 145 and 274 (Ganguly 88, Jesuraj 6-76) by 222 runs

In Ahmedabad

Gujarat 200 and 220 lost to Mumbai 207 and 214 for 2 (Indulkar 72*, Marathe 64) by 8 wickets

In Lucknow

Hyderabad 142 and 227 lost to Uttar Pradesh 340 and 32 for 0 by 10 wickets

In Delhi

Baroda 449 for 4 and 35 for 0 drew with Services 388 (Jasvir Singh 67, IS Pathan 3-66)

In Visakhapatnam

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Punjab 316 and 185 for 7 (RS Sodhi 45, Lakshman Kishore 3-62) drew with Andhra 237 and 166 for 6 (MSK Prasad 46, Bipul Sharma 3-24)

National Conference (NC), National Conference (NC), Imran Nabi Dar, Rajya Sabha polls, Sat Sharma, People’s Conference, BJP, Indian express news, current affairs

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