Aravind derails Railways

In 2011/12, Aravind only took 9 Ranji wickets at 49.44. A knee injury followed which ruled him out for 16 months and an entire Ranji season.

Six years after he made his first class debut, Sreenath Aravind took his hundredth wicket when Railways’ Anustup Majumdar chopped one on at the Karnail Singh Stadium. Aravind would end up picking up three more to finish with figures of 4/43.

A journey that started with the scalp of Cheteshwar Pujara in the semifinal of the 2008 Ranji Trophy had peaked in the 2011 season — when he took 36 wickets at 22.38, followed up by finishing as one of IPL 4’s best with 21 wickets in 13 games. Those performances saw him being included in India’s squad for the ODI series against England that year.

The going, however, hasn’t been anywhere as smooth since then.

In 2011/12, Aravind only took 9 Ranji wickets at 49.44. A knee injury followed which ruled him out for 16 months and an entire Ranji season. He was dropped from his RCB franchise and subsequently hasn’t played a game in the IPL.

His return to the Karnataka fold last year too wasn’t an outright success. But captain R Vinay Kumar has persisted with him. “Him being a left-armer brings variety to the side,” Kumar had said. Justified, considering in three games so far, Aravind already has 17 wickets.

His spell of 4/9 against Tamil Nadu included the season’s first hattrick and bowled his side to a 285-run win. Against Railways, Aravind continued in the same vein. On Tuesday, Railways resumed on an overnight 106/4, 141 runs behind Karnataka’s first innings total. And Aravind was quick to get into the act. After Abhimanyu Mithun had removed nightwatchman Avinash Yadav, Railways would have hoped for a partnership between Majumdar and captain Mahesh Rawat.

But despite being dropped, Rawat could do little with his life as he was trapped by an Aravind ball that came sharply in. After that Aravind took little time in running through the tail as Railways lost their last six wickets inside 19 overs on the penultimate day. This gave an outside chance for an outright win to Karnataka, a chance doubled by unbeaten half-centurions Robin Uthappa and Karun Nair extending the overall lead to 207.

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Brief scores: Karnataka 247 and 131/1 (R Uthappa 70*, K Nair 61*; Anureet Singh 1/43) Railways 171 (A Majumdar 38, A Kaushik 59; S Aravind 4/43).

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