Pandey acrobatically dived and grabbed the ball out of thin air to produce one of the superlative catches seen in recent times in domestic cricket.
Karnataka needed a dash of josh to lift their sagging spirits and the young and dashing Manish Pandey provided just that.
Abhishek Nayar had just earned a well-deserved half century after which he decided to go down the track and loft left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi over long on.
Pandey acrobatically dived and grabbed the ball out of thin air to produce one of the superlative catches seen in recent times in domestic cricket.
At stumps on Day Three, Pandey was batting on an unbeaten 59 off just 71 balls. He added an unbeaten 89 with Ganesh Satish (40 n.o) for the fourth wicket to keep his side alive in chase of 338.
However, the dice stayed loaded in favour of Mumbai as never before has a team chased down such a stiff target in a Ranji Trophy final. Ajit Agarkar picked up three wickets early in the Karnataka second innings, including that of skipper Robin Uthappa to put the champions in a strong position.
Earlier, Mumbai posted 234 in their second innings, on the strength of the 95-run partnership between Nayar and Dhawal Kulkarni and a 61-run partnership for the ninth wicket between Kulkarni and Ramesh Powar. The decision to promote Kulkarni up the order from No.10 to No.7 proved to be a masterstroke from the Mumbai camp.
Abhimanyu Mithun finished with a six-wicket haul to take his season’s tally to 47. R Vinay Kumar who picked up three wickets is second on the wicket-takers list with 46 wickets.
But when Agarkar picked up three early wickets, two of them, courtesy peach of deliveries, it looked like the hosts would be knocked over once again.
Karnataka skipper Uthappa dropped down the order to No.4 as wicketkeeper CM Gautam was promoted to open with KB Pawan.
Gautam self-destructed when he threw his bat at a short and wide delivery from Agarkar. Wasim Jaffer didn’t spill the chance in the slips. Agarkar then got one to cut back into Pawan and trapped him in front of the stumps.
Uthappa failed to click in the second innings too. Once again the ball on the off-stump troubled him. Agarkar got on to pitch and move away and Uthappa edged to wicketkeeper Vinayak Samant.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}