The defending champions got off to another awkward start this season, Railways conceding the first-innings lead — and two points — to karnataka. It was payback for the visitors, who’d lost this fixture at home last season.Having conceded the lead yesterday, Railways batted much of today — until a bizarre declaration three overs into mandatory overs. Amit Pagnis (76) and Sanjay Bangar (61) added 127 runs for the first wicket on the dead track.Yet Railways needn’t be disappointed with the result — last season, too, they’d started on a bad note, facing relegation at one stage, but went on to win the title. More importantly, they were without three key performers — who will be back later in the season.‘‘We knew that JP Yadav and Murali Kartik wouldn’t be there for most of the season but it was a set back when Parida had to leave the squad on the eve of the match and we were a spinner short in the game’’, captain Sanjay Bangar said.Yadav, not in the squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka, and Parida are likely to join the team soon. That gives Railways a problem of plenty. ‘‘It’s a tough call but we will have to drop two players from the present squad to fit in JP and Parida. It is also good that Shreyas Kanolkar has played well because he was under pressure to perform after being dropped last year because of poor form’’, Bangar said.Brief scoresRailways: 323 and 193-2 decl (Amit Pagnis 76, Sanjay Bangar 61) drew Karnataka 336 and 31-1.
