Ranji Trophy: Smaran's century saves Karnataka

Ravichandran Smaran gave another reminder of his immense talent with an unbeaten hundred as Karnataka ended the Ranji Trophy season with a draw against Haryana in their Elite Group C match in Bengaluru on Sunday.
 
However, Haryana have already qualified for the knockouts from the group, starting from February 8, along with Kerala.

Haryana are also the group-toppers with 29 points from seven games and Kerala finished second with 28 points.

Karnataka were fourth (20) behind Bengal (21) on the table.

Starting from overnight 108/3 and 38 runs behind, Karnataka had some work to do to ensure that they would not end up with a defeat in their final league match.

However, they lost Devdutt Padikkal (43), KL Shrijith (2) and Yashovardhan Parantap (12) in the space of 12 overs to slip to 164/6.

The home side was just 16 runs ahead at that time, but Smaran stroked 133 not out from 217 balls, putting on 98 runs for the seventh wicket with Hardik Raj, who made 40

to take Karnataka to safety.

More importantly, they consumed nearly 25 overs and a couple of hours during the stand that carried Karnataka to 262 before Hardik fell to Jayant Yadav.

But by that time, Karnataka had a lead of 114 runs.

Smaran extended that lead to 148 as Karnataka reached 294/8 in their second innings, and at that point Haryana agreed for a draw, knowing that there was not enough time to mount a chase.

Smaran was also Karnataka's highest run-getter this Ranji Trophy season with 516 runs in seven matches at an average of 64.50 with two hundreds.

Brief scores:

At Bengaluru: Karnataka: 304 and 294/8 in 89.5 overs (R Smaran 133 not out, KL Rahul 43, Devdutt Padikkal 43; Anshul Kamboj 3/40, Jayant Yadav 2/62) drew with  Haryana 450 all out in 115.3 overs.

At Indore: Madhya Pradesh: 670/7 declared and 28/0 vs Uttar Pradesh: 611 all out  in 164 overs (Abhishek Goswami 186, Aryan Juyal 138, Madhvan Kaushik 80, Aditya Sharma 66; Saransh Jain 5/138).