CHENNAI: When Karnataka took field in their first Ranji match against Railways, all eyes were on opener Mayank Agarwal, who had a sub-par South Africa series. However, the bigger question for Karn Sharma’s team came out of syllabus as Manish Pandey toyed with Railways’ bowlers for over three hours at IC-Gurunanak College Ground in Chennai on his way to a swashbuckling 121-ball 156.
Despite losing Mayank early, R Samarth (49) and KV Siddharth steadied the ship before lunch. However, once the former got out shortly post-lunch, Manish made his intentions clear on the very second ball he faced. The domestic stalwart jumped out of the crease and smacked left-arm spinner Avinash Yadav over long-on. The next over, medium-pacer Amit Sharma was tonked through deep-midwicket. A couple more sixes followed in the next two overs.
Over the next hour and a half, Manish took apart Railways’ attack, who were a bowler short as Himanshu Sangwan walked off early in the innings, with some exquisite stroke play on a ground where the boundaries were relatively small. From 110 for three in 36.2 overs, they went to Tea with 252 for 3 in 64. That Karn and his bowlers were often inconsistent did not help Railways’ cause at all.
Manish’s mayhem followed after tea as he pulled, checked his on-drive, and swatted Amit down the ground, racing his way into the 90s. Some premature celebrations followed as his team applauded when he was at 95, but shortly after, the 32-year-old got to his 20th first-class century with a six off Amit over midwicket. Meanwhile, Siddharth, who held forte at the other end, was the first to reach triple figures a little earlier.
In the 74th over, Manish smashed Avinash, off whom he scored 56 runs from 36 balls, for three sixes, two slog sweeps and a loft out of the ground. He went on to hit 12 fours and 10 sixes, adding 267 runs for fourth wicket, before mistiming a lofted shot off Shivam Chaudhary.
“Wanted to take my chances and took that because anyways the bowlers would have put the fielders behind. I just wanted to get some quick runs to start with and wanted to build up on that momentum,” Manish, who was bought by Lucknow Super Giants for Rs 4.6 crores in the IPL auction recently, said when queried about his game plan.
With Karnataka finishing with 392 for five, and Siddharth batting at 140, Manish said that they would want to add another 150 runs as they intend to bat only once. “I went too easy on myself. I was tired and shouldn't have played that shot,” he said, before adding, ”to see the position where we are, I am quite happy as a captain good thing that KV (Siddharth) is still playing and we have a few good batters to come as well. So, we'll just want to score a few more runs tomorrow and see how it goes from there.”
Brief scores: Karnataka 324/6 in 90 ovs (Manish 156, Siddharth 140 n.o) vs Railways