Medium pacers Vinay Kumar and Narvanda Aiyappa shared seven wickets to skittle out Maharashtra for a meagre 276 on the first day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Division Group A tie on Tuesday.
Opener Harshad Khadiwale top-scored with 96 for Maharashtra, who require an outright win to keep their semi final hopes alive, after they were put in to bat by Karnataka at the Chatrapati Shivaji Stadium in Ratnagiri.
Khadiwale stuck to his task and batted for 280 minutes and faced 182 balls as Maharashtra slumped to 74 for two, recovered to 165 through a 91-run stand between the young opener and captain Venugopal Rao (47), and then slid again to 214 for six.
D Mohan scored a quickfire 51 in 60 balls with a six and eight fours but there was little else of note in the home team's innings after they decided to cap four players - A Shrikande, A Bawne, S Jadhav and A Joshi.
Vinay Kumar took four for 66, including the wicket of Khadiwale who was caught behind the wicket after hitting 15 fours, while Aiyappa chipped into the middle order to finish with 3 for 70.
Veteran left arm spinner Sunil Joshi grabbed two wickets for 69 runs.
At stumps, Karnataka - who have no hopes of qualifying for the last four - were 2 without loss.
Scorecard:
Maharashtra (1st innings):
H Khadiwale c Naidu b Vinay Kumar 96
A Bawne c Naidu b Vinay Kumar 27
A Shrikhande c Naidu b Aiyappa 16
Y Venugopal Rao b Aiyappa 47
Y Takawale c Chipli b Joshi 15
D Mohan c Amit Verma b Aiyappa 51
A Joshi b Vinay Kumar 0
S Jadhav c Raghu b Vinay Kumar 4
A Dole c Raghu b Joshi 0
S Fallah run out (Patil) 2
W Sayyed not out 4
Extras: (b 4, lb 1, w 3, nb 6) 14
Total: (all out in 86.1 overs) 276
Fall of wickets:1-42, 2-74, 3-165, 4-210, 5-214, 6-214, 7-226, 8-241, 9-258, 10-276
Bowling: R Vinay Kumar 23-6-66-4, N Aiyappa 21.1-4-70-3, B Chipli 5-1-14-0, S Joshi 27-4-88-2, C Raghu 5-0-22-0, A Verma 5-1-11-0
Karnataka (1st innings):
R Uthappa not out 1
K Pawan not out 0
Extras: (nb 1) 1
Total: (for no loss in 1 overs) 2
Bowling: S Fallah 1-0-2-0
