Jadhav, tail-enders give Rest of India innings lead

A typically aggressive half-century from Kedar Jadhav ensured Rest of India took the first-innings lead in the Irani Cup, but Karnataka's bowling unit chipped away at the wickets and kept it down to 20 runs. In the 11 overs they needed to bat out before stumps, Karnataka converted their deficit into a lead of 19 without losing any wickets.

Jadhav came to the middle at 90 for 4, with RoI still trailing by 154, and saw the score become 102 for 5 when Vinay Kumar trapped Manoj Tiwary plumb with a perfectly pitched inducker. It wasn't the worst situation for Jadhav to be in. He had come into the match searching for form - his 493 Ranji Trophy runs had come at an average of 30.81 - and the scorecard gave him the freedom to play his shots without too much regard for consequences.

Accordingly, by the time he had faced 10 balls, he had already struck two glorious fours off Vinay - a front-foot punch past the bowler and a back-foot punch through square cover - and swung and missed while looking to pull a distinctly un-pullable ball outside off.

At lunch, Jadhav was on 24, with Jayant Yadav providing him obdurate company. He had moved to 34 when Vinay produced a ball that lifted from just short of a good length and caused him to hand a reasonably straightforward chance to R Samarth at gully. The ball popped straight out of his hands.

The sixth-wicket stand had nibbled the lead down to 62 when Karnataka finally broke through, with Shreyas Gopal getting a googly to squeeze through Jayant's bat and pad and roll into the stumps.

Jadhav, who had already reached his half-century by then, struck three fours off one Shreyas over to bring up RoI's 200. Vinay then had another chance dropped off his bowling, Rishi Dhawan flashing hard outside off and stinging the palms of a diving Manish Pandey at slip. With the lead down to 31, these were worrying signs for Karnataka.

Just then, Abhimanyu Mithun restored parity with a double-strike in the last over before tea. First, Dhawan failed to middle a pull and popped the ball to square leg. Two balls later, Mithun got one to scoot through at shin height to bowl Jadhav, who was looking to defend off the back foot.

It took a further 13 overs for Karnataka to get the last two wickets, by which time meaty hits from Shardul Thakur and Varun Aaron had extended RoI's score by a further 45 runs.

The day began with a bit of fortune for Karnataka, when Jiwanjot Singh tickled a leg-side ball from Vinay Kumar into the keeper's gloves in the second over of the morning. What followed was a period of play when Karnataka's seamers kept forcing Paras Dogra and Naman Ojha to defend as they bowled a tight off-stump line to a 6-3 field, but overpitched often enough for both batsmen to drive them for boundaries. Even though runs were coming at a fair rate, Dogra and Naman had to block out a lot of good bowling.

In the end, it was the introduction of spin that broke the partnership, when Shreyas pushed one through to strike Dogra's front pad as he stretched out to defend. Replays showed an inside-edge but the umpire hadn't picked it up.

Five and a half overs later, Mithun struck his first blow. His field had kept the batsman guessing right through his second spell of the morning, with a deepish square leg and a short leg in place for the short ball, but also a short mid-off standing right next to the pitch to remind him of the threat of the fuller change-up.

Eventually, it produced indecision in Naman, who pushed away from his body without too much footwork, and sent a thick edge flying to the left of Mayank Agarwal at wide slip. Agarwal dived full-length, plucked it out of the air one-handed, and came up with the ball still firmly in his grasp despite landing on his elbow.