Mumbai bowled out for 44, struggle to save match

Just when it seemed like Mumbai had a foot in the door to the Ranji Trophy final after dismissing Karnataka for 202 in their first innings innings, the holders bounced back like true champions. At stumps on Day One, a total of 256 runs were scored for the loss of 21 wickets.

Riding on a brilliant piece of seam bowling by captain R Vinay Kumar (6/20), Karnataka have almost forced the door shut on Mumbai by bowling them out for one of their lowest totals in Ranji history.

At the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday, Mumbai were 44 all out, giving Karnataka a 158-run first innings lead. The margin swelled to 168 at Day 1 stumps as hosts lost both their openers for 10.  The match began as Mumbai's best chance to make it to the final. They made the right moves, led by Shardul Thakur, strike bowler throughout the season with 40 scalps before the game.

During the day, in which he took four wickets and then one in the second innings, he became the highest-wicket-taker this season with 45 sticks. The pitch, though a green top, was not the type on which 21 wickets should fall on the opening day. The way Karnataka batted after winning the toss, it was like their brilliant run this season was being undone by silly batting in the first two sessions.

But when Mumbai's turn to bat came, the 40-time champions were in for a rude shock. Vinay Kumar led by example, picking up 6/20 in an unchanged eight-over spell as Mumbai were bundled out in 15.3 overs in about 77 minutes.

Vinay, Abhimanyu Mithun and Sreenath Aravind, who have a combined 100 wickets this season before the semifinal, did not give the Mumbaikar any breathing space. Vinay and Mithun consistently hit the right length and forced the Mumbai batsmen to make mistakes.

An impatient Akhil Herwadkar played across the line in the second ball of the innings and was out. Shreyas Iyer, who recently fetched a Rs 2.60 crore price at the recent IPL auction, was trapped in front of the wicket while playing across the line.

Mumbai skipper Aditya Tare was unlucky to have been given caught behind when there was no edge and the ball only swung away from his extended bat. Having said that, the Mumbai batsmen had no reason to look for excuses for the way they crumbled. Promising youngster Sidhesh Lad too fell giving an easy catch to short-midwicket for a first-ball duck.

Vinay was on a hat-trick twice as he found the edges of the Mumbai top-order or trapped them in front of the wicket with the batsmen showing little footwork.

Earlier, the initial wickets that Karnataka lost were batsmen's own undoing – KL Rahul hooking a Thakur short-ball to fine leg's throat, Ravikumar Samarth was a victim of a poorly-judged call to be run out and Uthappa deciding whether to leave or not to leave and eventually edging Wilkin Mota to slip just five minutes away from lunch.

Not taking away credit from Thakur, who was unlucky not to have been given leg before wicket when he had Uthappa plumb in front with no deflection from the bat nor the ball deviating away from the stumps. Hitting Uthappa low on his leg in front of middle-stump, and the trajectory would have taken the ball straight to middle stump, umpire Vineet Kulkarni thought otherwise.

Thakur (4/61) was easily the best Mumbai bowler, having Manish Pandey leg before but his best delivery was when he hit the seam around off-stump, prompting Kunal Kapoor to shoulder arms and the ball uprooting the off-stump.

There was some assist from the pitch for the seamers if the bowlers did not stray. It was also a track on which good batsmanship helped put runs on board. Like Uthappa (68) did after being surviving a close LBW shout early on, while sharing 81 for the third wicket before lunch with Pandey, you could put some runs on the board.

If not for anything, the very fact that the Ranji title clash is being scheduled at the Wankhede Stadium from March 8-12 should have motivated Tare & Co. to put up a better performance and be up for final show in front of their home ground.

With 18 wickets remaining in the match, and more importantly, four days left, Karnataka are in the driver's seat. Mumbai will have to do something special to dig themselves out of the hole they are in.