Aaron six-for limits Karnataka to 244

Rest of India 20 for 1 trail Karnataka 244 (Agarwal 68, Nair 59, Reddy 54, Aaron 6-63) by 224 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A six-wicket haul from Varun Aaron, his first in first-class cricket, restricted Karnataka to 244 after Rest of India sent them in at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Karnataka could have ended with even less had RoI not offered their batsmen three lives.

Two of them came in the middle session, after Karun Nair and debutant Abhishek Reddy had come together with the scorecard reading 107 for 4. First, Rishi Dhawan bowled a peach of an outswinger to Reddy, close to off stump and forcing him to play and edge to the keeper, only for replays to confirm he had overstepped.

In his next over, Reddy nicked a wider, fuller outswinger, only for Manoj Tiwary, the RoI captain, to spill a simple catch at first slip. Reddy was on 18 when the catch went down, and he went on to score 54 and put on 113 for the fifth wicket with Nair.

RoI might yet come to regret allowing that partnership to flourish. Left with five overs to bat out at the end of the day, they lost Unmukt Chand - who inexplicably shouldered arms to a straight ball from Vinay Kumar that was angling into his stumps - and played and missed at enough balls from Karnataka's new-ball pair to suggest they will face quite a test, on a still greenish pitch, when play resumes on the second morning.

Having picked up 11 wickets in three Ranji Trophy matches after returning from India's tour of Australia, Aaron looked in excellent rhythm. While he didn't strain the speed gun needle to its limit, he was still sharp, hovering around the high 130s and low 140s, and picked up most of his wickets by simply hitting a good length on a fourth-stump line. There was a decent amount of bounce on offer when he bent his back, which meant driving or punching him with an angled bat was fraught with risk.

RoI began with the medium-fast duo of Shardul Thakur and Rishi Dhawan, and both were guilty of bowling too full or too straight in an effort to find new-ball swing. Robin Uthappa and Mayank Agarwal had picked up five boundaries - all via drives down the ground or clips off the legs - when Aaron came on to bowl the eighth over of the morning.

By then, the umpires had already changed the ball twice for going out of shape - they would do so again after the 26th over. Aaron struck with his fifth ball, which Uthappa poked at outside off, his front foot a critical fraction late in moving across, and edged to the keeper.

In his next over, Aaron induced R Samarth to edge an attempted drive, only for Paras Dogra to spill the low chance diving to his left from third slip.

Runs came freely for Agarwal and Samarth, with the bowlers continuing to feed them balls to drive, and Karnataka were 58 for 1 after 15 overs. Aaron and Pragyan Ojha restored some control, giving away only eight runs in the first six overs after the drinks interval, before Dhawan struck to remove Samarth in the first over of his second spell. It was the same recipe that had brought Aaron his success - fourth-stump line, not quite up there for the drive - with the added ingredient of away-swing.

Having survived through to lunch, Agarwal and Manish Pandey were both back in the dressing room five overs after lunch. Aaron dismissed both of them, his line catching an unusually tentative Pandey in two minds between playing and leaving, and forcing Agarwal into edging one that was too close to force off the back foot. Both edges came to rest within Naman Ojha's gloves. They were his third and fourth catches of the morning.

He had to wait a while for his fifth, and it came after tea, via a tactical switch from Thakur, who had till then had a poor day with the ball. With Reddy on 49, he went around the wicket and banged the ball in short, with a short leg, a leg gully, a long leg and a deepish square leg in place. Reddy gloved an attempted pull to the keeper on 49 itself, but the umpire didn't spot it, but there was to be no such luck when the same thing happened four balls later.

Aaron struck twice in the next over, getting Nair caught at second slip for the mistake of throwing his bat at a wide-ish ball, and slipping in the straighter one to trap Vinay in front to bring up the five-for.

Pragyan Ojha, who had till then looked pedestrian bowling with a remodelled, round-arm-ish action, then picked up two lower-order wickets - the second giving Naman his sixth catch of the innings to equal Nayan Mongia's Irani Trophy record - before Aaron returned to finish things off. This wicket was a departure from Aaron's usual modus operandi, and involved a touch of artistry, a back-of-the-hand slower ball that froze Abhimanyu Mithun's feet and spun like a googly to smack him on the front pad.