Bangalore: Thanks to a century by Manish Pandey (119, 147b, 13x4, 2x6), Karnataka batted themselves into a safe position, but Mumbai picked up points for the first innings lead on the third and penultimate day of the Group A Ranji Trophy league match, here Tuesday.
Replying to Karnataka's first innings total of 251, Mumbai managed to score 269 after starting the day at 217 for seven as Siddesh Lad went on to score 93 and his eighth wicket partnership with Javed Khan (48) was worth 80.
Trailing by 18 runs, Karnataka were 286 for eight at stumps after shrugging off the loss of two early wickets as Pandey and opener debutant Ravikumar Samarth (75, 111b, 10x4) put on 133 runs for the third wicket to take their team to safety.
With an overall lead of 269, the onus is on Karnataka to either declare the innings and attempt winning the match outright or continue batting on the last day, thus consuming valuable time and giving themselves fewer overs to take 10 Mumbai wickets.
Meanwhile in Agartala, Andhra Pradesh tasted their first win of the season as they beat Tripura with a bonus point. Andhra bowled Tripura out for 86 in their second innings to set up a ten-wicket win. Medium-pacer Duvvarapu Shivkumar took four wickets to run through Tripura, set Andhra a fourth-innings chase of 103.
Andhra achieved the target in just 21.2 overs, with Srikar Bharat hitting an unbeaten 70-ball 64 and Prasanth Kumar remained not out on 39.
