Bangalore, April 21: Skipper Rahul Dravid showed the way with a chanceless unbeaten double century that in every way was the ultimate in grinding a hapless attack to dust. The brown, placid wicket offered no help whatsoever to the bowlers, and with the Karnataka batsmen remorseless, Uttar Pradesh struggled under the merciless sun for the second day in a row of the Ranji Trophy final.Karnataka, overnight 284 for three to UP's first innings total of 134, virtually dashed whatever hopes the visitors had of still making a match of this final with another exemplary display of batsmanship. When stumps were drawn for on the third day, they were 600 for six, with Dravid batting on 209 and Somashekar Shiruguppi on 27. Karnataka, at this stage, are 466 runs ahead, with four wickets and two days to spare.Dravid and Vijay Bharadwaj put on 257 runs for the fourth wicket in 329 minutes. Dravid reached his ton off 203 deliveries while Bharadwaj took 212 deliveries to score his. Just when it seemed that this pairwould go on and on and break every record, the third new ball accounted for Bharadwaj.The batsman, attempting to drive Ubaid Kamal on the rise, got the ball far too high on the bat and lobbed a catch to covers. His 122 came in 329 minutes. He played 248 deliveries and smacked 14 of them to the fence.The fourth wicket pair, which came together just a few minutes before tea on Monday, was finally separated 75 minutes after lunch today.UP met with further success three overs later when Sunil Joshi drove distantly at Kamal and edged to Rizwan Shamshad at first slip.But Dravid marched to his own tune, and with Ananth (14), added 52 runs in 82 minutes for the sixth wicket. Ananth, who batted with a lot of composure, was dismissed off Gyanandendra Pandey. He was caught by the wicket-keeper off the silly point fielder's body.Somashekar Shiruguppi (27 batting) helped his skipper add 58 undefeated runs for the seventh wicket in only 45 minutes.Dravid took the honours of the day as he carved up hissecond double century in Ranji Trophy. He has already batted for 497 minutes, faced 333 balls and hammered 25 fours and two sixes.ScoreboardUttar Pradesh (1st innings): 134Karnataka (1st innings, overnight 284-3): Rahul Dravid (batting) 209, Vijay Bharadwaj c Pandey b Kamal 122, Sunil Joshi c Shamshad b Kamal 2, R Ananth c Mudgal b Pandey 14, Somashekar Shiraguppi (batting) 27; Extras (b6, lb7, nb10) 23.Total (for 6 wickets in 833 mins, 203 overs) 600Fall of wickets: 3-221; 4-478; 5-490; 6-542.Bowling: Ubaid Kamal 41-15-90-2, AW Zaidi 35- 0-150-2 (8nb), Gyanendra Pandey 56-17-116-1, M Saif 20-6-61-0, Rizwam Shamshad 26-2-89-1, Jyothi Yadav 4-0-10-0, Saurabh Shukla 15-0-51-0, Rahul Sapru 6-0-20-0.
