Ranji Trophy 2017: Manish Pandey slams 4th first-class double century against Uttar Pradesh

Manish Pandey’s classy double hundred in Kanpur was the fourth of his first-class career. (Source: File)

Manish Pandey brought up his fourth double century in first-class cricket to put Karnataka in command against Uttar Pradesh on Saturday in Kanpur. Pandey’s double hundred which came off 231 balls featured 29 boundaries and two maximums. Along with Dega Nischal, who scored 195, he forged a mammoth partnership of 354 to take his side past the 600-run mark for the third time this season. Enroute his impressive knock Pandey also surpassed his previous best score of 218 and was unbeaten on 221 at Tea. In his first-class career, Pandey boasts of impressive figures as he has scored more than 5500 runs in 82 matches at an average of 49.17 and also has 16 centuries to his name.

Earlier, Karnataka skipper Vinay Kumar won the toss and elected to bat first at the Green Park stadium. The decision proved to be a correct one as the visitors got off to a fine start. While they did lose a few wickets in the middle, Karun Nair, Manish Pandey and Dega Nischal ensured the there is no batting collapse. While Nair was dismissed for 62, the duo of Pandey and Nischal piled the misery on the UP bowlers as they made merry on a batting friendly surface. At tea on Day2, Karnataka were in total control with the scoreboard reading 600/4.

Squads –

Karnataka

Ravikumar Samarth, Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Manish Pandey, Dega Nischal, Stuart Binny, CM Gautam (wk), Shreyas Gopal, Krishnappa Gowtham, Vinay Kumar (c), Ronit More

Uttar Pradesh

Akshdeep Nath, Imtiaz Ahmed, Umang Sharma, Suresh Raina (c), Mohammad Saif, Saurabh Kumar, Upendra Yadav (wk), Rinku Singh, Ankit Rajpoot, Shivam Chaudhary, Dhruv Pratap Singh