Karnataka cruise to maiden win

Karnataka 366 (Uthappa 133, Joshi 65, Kalyankrishna 4-85) and 171 (Dravid 50, Vijaykumar 6-51) beat Andhra 218 (Manoj Sai 70, Suresh 54, Joshi 5-41) and 117 (KP Appanna 4-24) by 202 runs
Scorecard

There were no glorious uncertainties on the fourth day in Mysore with Karnataka needing a little more than two hours to complete a straightforward victory, their first of the season.

Andhra's slim chances of making the 292 more runs they needed became slimmer still when their most dependable batsman, Gnaneshwara Rao, fell to a spectacular one-handed catch by Robin Uthappa at mid-off in the fourth over of the day.

The Karnataka quicks tested new man AG Pradeep and ASK Varma with a series of bouncers but it wasn't until the introduction of spin that the next wicket fell. Sunil Joshi struck in his first over, getting Varma to nick one to the keeper.

Karnataka were looking to finish things early, keeping four men around the bat to the spinners. Andhra were at 49 for 6, with Pradeep, their last recognised batsman, at the crease. He decided to go after the bowling, a lofted on drive off KP Appanna which landed just within the boundary. He followed that up with a six over long-on off Joshi in the next over as Andhra moved briskly to 97 for 6.

Appanna, however, brought Andhra's charge to an abrupt halt. M Suresh's attempted backfoot drive ended in the gloves of Naidu, Pradeep's front-foot defensive rolled onto the stumps after deflecting off his pads, GV Sarath Babu was bowled playing down the wrong line, and last man P Vijaykumar's wild heave connected only with air to allow a simple stumping for Naidu, his sixth dismissal in the innings and ninth of the match.

Karnataka may have got their season back on track but question marks remain over their fragile batting. Robin Uthappa and Rahul Dravid had satisfactory games but the other specialist batsmen had a match to forget.