MUMBAI, March 15: Defending champions Mumbai tightened the screws on Karnataka today as they pressed for an outright victory in their concluding Group A Ranji Trophy Super League encounter. After foregoing the option of enforcing follow-on, Mumbai were sitting pretty with an overall lead of 252 runs when stumps were drawn on the penultimate day of the four-day event.With the Wankhede Stadium track beginning to assist the spinners, an exciting finish seems in store on the final day.Vijay Bharadwaj's judicious 58 (140b, 196m, 8x4) followed by Sunil Joshi's enterprise (55: 83b, 131m, 8x4, 1x6) had earlier impeded Mumbai's progress. In the event, the visitors added 176 runs to their overnight score of 135-5 before being bowled out, four runs short of the follow-on mark.However, with skipper Vinod Kambli deciding to give his bowlers a reprieve, the Mumbai second innings was set on the rails. Opener Amit Pagnis (47: 77b, 112m, 5x4) yet again failed to captilise on a fine start by cutting left-arm spinnerJoshi to the lone slip. The 19-year-old southpaw had realised 79 runs for the first wicket with Sunil More, who was more content in dropping anchor.Amol Muzumdar (batting 16), who replaced Pagnis, made light of the copious amount of turn and bounce generated by the spinners with elegant drives to the cover boundary. Besides, Muzumdar was rarely ruffled in his brief tenure as he alongwith More (batting 21) saw the day through.Mumbai's hopes of an early success were put on hold by Bharadwaj and Anand Katti (17), who added 66 runs for the sixth wicket. The association parted ways when the new ball was pressed into service after 83 overs. Katti, who took 53 balls to score a run, was the first to depart. Bharadwaj, too followed suit and the Karnataka first innings appeared heading for a hasty end.Aided by the Mumbai fieldsmen's largesse, the eighth wicket pair of Joshi and DS Ananth (35: 87b, 145m, 6x4) frustrated the Mumbai bowlers by stringing 67 runs.Joshi was dropped twice when on 9 and 17respectively. First Rajesh Sutar grassed an farily easy chance at backward shortleg after the batsman had fended a Kuruvilla bouncer and then an airborne Muzumdar at second slip failed to latch on to a slash off Mhambrey.The left-hander made the most it clobbering left-arm spinner Nilesh Kulkarni and medium-pacer Santosh Saxena. He lofted Kulkarni for a boundary and a six over long-on and followed it up with a power-packed sweep to the square-leg boundary, all in succession, to collect 14 runs in the over. Saxena was driven for three boundaries in the arc between mid-on and square leg that cost the bowler 12 runs in the over.Kulkarni eventually scalped Joshi, when he batsman tried to hoist the bowler over the deep-square leg and ended up holing to Pagnis. Mhambrey then mopped up the tail which included the queer dismissal of Johnson. Substitute Kiran Powar, fielding at silly point, dived full-length to grab a bat-pad lob but only succeeded in tapping it to Mhambrey to pouch it on hisfollow-through.The air of uncertainty over Doddanarsiah Ganesh's participation was cleared when he came out to bat with a runner. The wiry medium-pacer, who was discharged from the hospital yesterday after a bout of illness, puzzled the 500-odd gathering by hurling wayward bouncers in Mumbai's second innings. With Johnson rendered hors de combat owing to a hamstring pull, Karnataka had to resorted to the left-arm spin combination of Katti and Joshi for a breakthrough in the last session of the day.``We would like to add another 100 runs before giving them 75-odd overs to bat,'' remarked Mumbai coach Balwinder Singh Sandhu, while revealing the Mumbai game-plan for the morrow.Mumbai will, however, be hampered by the absence of all-rounder Sutar, who sprained his shoulder while fielding.SCOREBOARDMumbai (1st innings): 467.Karnataka (1st innings; overnight 135-5): Sujith Somasunder c S Kulkarni b N Kuruvilla 10, J Arun Kumar c S Kulkarni b Sutar 48, Fazal Khaleel lbw NKulkarni 49, Krishnaraj Sriram c More b Kuruvilla 0, Vijay Bharadwaj c Sutar b Mhambrey 58, Somashekar Shiraguppi c and b N Kulkarni 0, Anand Katti b Kuruvilla 17, Sunil Joshi c Pagnis b N Kulkarni 55, D S Ananth c and b Mhambrey 35, David Johnson c and b Mhambrey 12, Dodda Ganesh not out 0.Extras: (b-5, lb-6, nb-18) 29.Total: (all out in 120.5 overs, 565 mins) 313.Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-105, 3-117, 4-128, 5-135, 6-201, 7-215, 8-282, 9-300.Bowling: Kuruvilla 21-4-70-3, Mhambrey 32.5-13-78-3, Saxena 15-5-38-0, N Kulkarni 42-14-107-3, Phadke 1-1-0-0, Sutar 7-3-7-1, Kambli 2-1-2-0.Mumbai (2nd innings): Amit Pagnis c Johnson b Joshi 47, Sunil More batting 21, Amol Muzumdar batting 16.Extras: (b-8, lb-1, w-2, nb-3): 14.Total: (for one wicket in 34 overs, 141 mins) 98.Fall of wicket: 1-72.Bowling: Ganesh 6-1-17-0, Somasunder 11-3-19-0, Arun Kumar 3-0-13-0, Katti 8-1-18-0, Joshi 6-0-22-1.
