da casino： Railways entered the semifinals of the Ranji Trophy on the strength oftheir 214 run first innings lead against six time champions Karnataka atNew Delhi’s Karnail Singh Stadim on Monday
Staff Reporter26-Mar-2001Railways entered the semifinals of the Ranji Trophy on the strength oftheir 214 run first innings lead against six time champions Karnataka atNew Delhi’s Karnail Singh Stadim on Monday. Promoted to open the innings,Karnataka’s Barrington Rowland made an unbeaten century as the visitors whowere set an academic fourth innings target of 633, closed the game on279/4. Railways, which finished runners-up to Tamil Nadu in the RanjiTrophy way back in 1987/88, have not had a particularly successful timesince. They face the daunting prospect of a clash against Punjab, nowinstalled as title favourites, at Mohali in the semifinals from April 5-9.Railways resumed their second innings on the fifth morning at 385/6, securein the knowledge that they led overall by a staggering 599, with fourwickets still in hand. The off breaks of Vijay Bharadwaj snared all threewickets to fall as the hosts declared on 418/9.First innings centurion S Sahu fell in the fourth over of the day for just23 but the early interest centred on whether Yere Goud, unbeaten on 78overnight, would get to his century. Goud did not quite succeed, fallingfor 92 (268 balls, 9 fours and 1 six) and skipper Abhay Sharma closed theinnings at the fall of Zakir Hussian five runs later. Speedster DoddaGanesh collected the best figures of 3/63 while Bharadwaj finished with 3/77.In the 64 overs that remained, Rowland, who made a century on his RanjiTrophy debut for Karnataka last season, moved serenely to his second ton inthe competition, closing on an exact 100 (189 balls, 9 fours). Rowlandadded 52 for the first wicket with Mithun Beerala, who made a breezy 35 offjust 27 balls with eight sparkling boundaries, and another 59 for thesecond wicket with Vijay Bharadwaj (43). No. 4 GK Arun Kumar, who opened inthe first dig, made a brisk 27 including two fours and two sixes.But Rowland’s most dependable partner proved to be wicket keeper ThilakNaidu in whose conmpany he added 104 for the fourth wicket in under 23overs. Naidu fell for 46, giving off spinner Kulamani Parida his secondwicket and the match was called off when Rowland reached his centuryshortly afterwards.