Uthappa 156 powers Karnataka

Robin Uthappa's 16th first-class century and his fifth-wicket partnership of 177 with CM Gautam lifted Karnataka to a first-innings lead of 263 before they declared to leave Jammu & Kashmir an hour to bat out on day two. J&K reached 37 in that time, for the loss of Obaid Haroon, who was caught behind while poking at a length ball in the corridor from Abhimanyu Mithun.

Not long after he was dismissed, Uthappa was to learn that he had missed out on World Cup selection, but by then he had done all he could have, over the course of the season, to make a serious case for himself. In a Karnataka top six in which no one else was averaging 40, Uthappa had scored 437 runs in seven innings at 62.42. Even if J&K's bowling on day two seldom made it seem that way, his 156 had come on a tricky pitch with seam movement and inconsistent bounce.

At the end of day one, both teams had noted the presence of indentations on the pitch, created when the ball bounced on the moisture-laden surface in the morning. At lunch on day two, Karnataka's coach J Arunkumar said these spots were still present, but the J&K bowlers had not managed to hit them often enough to worry the batsmen.

Instead, they served up a series of short balls that released any pressure Karnataka might have felt when they started the day five down and 37 behind. Mohammed Mudhasir and Ram Dayal, who had picked up all five wickets on day one, began with 14 successive dot balls, but lost their length thereafter. Uthappa and Gautam hit five fours in the first eight overs of the morning, and all of them were pulls. Uthappa also pulled Mudhasir for a six that sailed over the fence behind square leg, causing the umpires to call for the box of replacement balls.

The rate of boundaries did not let up at all, and of the 137 runs that came in the morning session, 111 came in fours and sixes. The range of strokes widened too. Uthappa cut crisply, even when his weight was on the front foot, and bisected third man and deep point with this shot, off Umar Nazir, to bring up Karnataka's 200, in the 49th over. Gautam was severe on Parvez Rasool's offspin, and hit him for four fours, including two chipped drives down the ground and a cheeky reverse-sweep past the man at slip.

Ram Dayal had Gautam caught and bowled off the last ball of the first session, the ball stopping on the batsman and causing him to check his drive. By then he had made 80, his fourth firefighting first-innings half-century in as many matches this season.

J&K did not do themselves any favours on the field, and twice dropped Uthappa in the slips - Paras Sharma put him down when he was on 63 and Ian Dev Singh when he was on 135. By the time the second drop occurred, he was already in the middle of another big lower-order partnership, this time with Shreyas Gopal. The seventh-wicket pair added 88 in 114 balls before Mudhasir finally broke through to bowl Uthappa. Shreyas, who already has a century this season, moved assuredly to 58 before Karnataka declared, and struck seven fours including a ramp over the slips off Nazir.