A total of 14 wickets tumbled on the day 1 of the Ranji Trophy final of 2014/15 as defending champions Karnataka, who made a brilliant start to the match, were left reeling at the end of the day by Tamil Nadu courtesy L Balaji.
After bowling out Tamil Nadu for 134 runs, Karnataka got hit by an injury blow as their opener Kl Rahul suffered a hamstring injury and had to retire hurt. L Balaji then piled on Karnataka’s misery as he took 3 wickets as Karnataka finished the day 1 at 45/4 with still 89 runs behind.
Earlier after being put into bat, Tamil Nadu batsmen never got going as lead by R Vinay Kumar, Karnataka bowlers struck at regular intervals as five of opposition batsmen failed to get to the double-digit score. Opener Abhinav Mukund top-scored with 35 runs whereas the highest partnership of their innings (31 runs) was between M Rangarajan and Baba Indrajith. Vinay Kumar took 5 wickets and was equally supported by Abhimanyu Mithun, who took 3 wickets.
Brief Scores: Tamil Nadu 134 (Mukund 35, Vinay Kumar 5-34) vs Karnataka 45/4 (Balaji 3-10) at the end of day 1