Typical Rlys: Shreyas gets a berth, scores big

“Vinay Kumar and Dodda Ganesh bowled very well, and my idea was to stick around,” he said after the day’s play.

He said that last season there were a few flaws in his technique that were corrected which helped him to start off well this season. His knock of 81 which included 11 fours helped Railways post 323 runs on the board and was well supported by Shankar Rao (40).

Khanolkar was out when he flashed at a delivery only to be snapped up by Kumble at gully off Vinay Kumar. For the visitors Vinay Kumar, who picked up three wickets on the opening day, took two more to finish with five for 65 and Kumble picked up three wickets for 86.

Karnataka started their innings on a shaky note. They lost both their openers by the time 29 runs were scored. It was then left to skipper Sujith Somasunder and Sudhindra Shinde to rebuild the innings. But just before crossing the 100-run mark the visitors lost Somasunder who was bowled by T. P. Singh when he tried to pull with the ball keeping low. Santosh Saxena took the first two wickets for just 33 runs.

Though satisfied with the day’s play, Somasunder said it would have been better if they could have conceded around 70 fewer runs. With some variable bounce in the wicket it will now be left to Shinde (49 n.o.) and Stuart Binny (19 n.o.) to play cautiously.

On the other hand, Vinod Sharma, the coach of the Railways team feels that if his bowlers maintain a good line and length they can cause a few problems for the visitors.

“We know that only Harvinder and Bangar are the experienced bowlers in the line up. If the others can bowl well in tandem with them it will be difficult for Karnataka,” he said.

Breif scores

Railways (1st innings) 323 (Raja Ali 59, Shreyas Khanolkar 81, Shankar Rao 40; Vinay Kumar 5-65, Anil Kumble 3-86) vs Karnataka 134-3 (Sujith Somasunder 46, S Shinde 49 batting; Santosh Saxena 2-33).

ELSEWHERE

• Gujarat: Overnight 110/4, no play on Day 2 because of rain.

• Maharashtra 350 (A Sanclecha 54, Sourav Ganguly 5-75, Lahiri 3-71) vs Bengal 202/5 (Arindam Das 30, Ganguly 81 no)

• Services 147 and 228-8 (Yashpal Singh 49, I Malhatra 4-61 ) vs Punjab 223 (I Malhatra 63, A Uniyal 68)

• Baroda 58/4 (Sahabuddin 3-22) vs Andhra

• Haryana 277 (Joginder Sharma 67, P Kumar 5-93) vs UP 218-3 (S Shukla 56, R Shamshad 45, GK Pandey 50)