Shardul Thakur and Balwinder Singh Sandhu's superb bowling injected more spice into the Ranji Trophy semi-final, which appears set for an exciting finish with Mumbai needing 384 runs to dethrone defending champions Karnataka.
Set a daunting target of 445 runs, Mumbai were 61 for no loss at stumps on day two of the match in Bengaluru, on Thursday.
Openers Aditya Tare (40) and Akhil Herwadkar (21) were in the middle with Mumbai still needing something special from their batsmen for a remarkable turnaround after they were dismissed for 44 in their first innings.
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Mumbai have three more days to get those runs, and, looking at the approach of Tare and Herwadkar, they seem to have a plan to go for the target in a calculated manner.
On the flip side, Karnataka will fancy their chances of dealing early blows.
Resuming at the overnight score of 10 for two, Karnataka were bundled out for 286 in their second innings, with night-watchman Abhimanyu Mithun (89) and Ravi Kumar Samarth (58) scoring the bulk of the runs.
Tare would have hoped to take early wickets to bring his team back into the game, but he could not as he apparently seemed running out of ideas, which was evident in the lower-order batsman Mithun making merry out of the poor bowling attack.
Surprisingly enough, he did not use his star bowler Shardul Thakur early on, giving ample opportunity for Mithun and Samarth to take the game away from Mumbai by stitching a speedy 149 run partnership for the third wicket.
Mithun rubbed salt over Mumbai’s wounds by cracking a career-best 89 off 113 balls with 14 hits to the fence, before he was cleaned up by Thakur.
At lunch, Karnataka were 161 for three in their second innings, 319 ahead of the visitors.
Resuming at 161 for three at lunch, Karnataka lost the plot after the in-form Samarth was stumped brilliantly by Tare off Sandhu for 58.
Manish Pandey and Karun Nair then put on 61 runs for the fifth wicket and took the hosts total to 222.
Nair did not last long as he was caught by Tare behind the stumps off Sandhu after making a useful 28, which included five hits over the ropes, leaving Karnataka at 222 for five.
After the departure of Nair, the Mumbai bowlers ran through the Karnataka innings, scalping the last five wickets for 64 runs.
Scorecard
Karnataka (1st innings):
R Uthappa c Yadav b Mota 68
K Rahul c Sandhu b Thakur 15
R Samarth run out (Herwadkar) 3
M Pandey lbw Thakur 34
K Nair not out 49
K Kapoor b Thakur 0
C Gautam lbw Nayar 4
S Gopal c Tare b Sandhu 0
Vinay Kumar run-out 17
A Mithun c Tare b Thakur 0
S Aravind c Tare b Mota 2
Extras: (b 8, lb 1, w 1) 10
Total: (in 60.2 overs) 202
Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-34, 3-115, 4-133, 5-133, 6-153, 7-154, 8-178, 9-179, 10-202.
Bowling: S Thakur 18-6-61-4(1w), B Sandhu 14-0-57-1, W Mota 14.2-9-18-2, Harmeet Singh 5-0-28-0, A Nayar 9-0-29-1.
Mumbai (1st innings):
A Herwadkar lbw V Kumar 0
A Tare c Gautam b V Kumar 9
S Iyer lbw Mithun 15
S Yadav c Nair b Aravind 12
S Lad c Gopal b V Kumar 0
N Patil c Pandey b V Kumar 2
W Mota lbw V Kumar 0
S Thakur c Rahul b V Kumar 6
H Singh lbw Aravind 0
B Sandhu not out 0
A Nayar retired hurt
Extras: 0
Total: (in 15.3 overs) 44
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-23, 3-25, 4-25, 5-31, 6-31, 7-37, 8-41, 9-44
Bowling: Vinay Kumar 8-1-20-6, A Mithun 5-0-23-1, S Aravind 2.3-1-1-2.
Karnataka (2nd innings):
R Uthappa c Mota b Thakur 4
K Rahul c Tare b Sandhu 2
A Mithun b Thakur 89
R Samarth st Tare b Harmeet 58
M Pandey run-out 42
K Nair c Tare b Sandhu 28
K Kapoor c Yadav b Sandhu 2
C Gautam c Herwadkar b Thakur 20
Vinay Kumar c & b Harmeet 4
S Gopal b Thakur 23
S Aravind not out 2
Extras: (b-12) 12
Total: (in 77.5 overs) 286
Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-10, 3-159, 4-161, 5-222, 6-232, 7-233, 8-249, 9-261, 10-286
Bowling: S Thakur 17.5-5-69-4, B Sandhu 16-5-45-3, W Mota 12-3-45-0, Harmeet 30-6-109-2, S Lad 1-0-4-0, S Yadav 1-0-2-0.
Mumbai (2nd innings):
A Tare not out 40
A Herwadkar not out 21
Extras: 0
Total: (for no loss, in 17 overs) 61
Bowling: Vinay Kumar 6-0-35-0, A Mithun 6-3-17, S Aravind 4-2-7-0, S Gopal 1-0-2-0.
