On this day in 2014: Karnataka win their 7th Ranji title beating Maharashtra
February 2 holds a special place in the annals of Karnataka cricket as nine years ago, on the same day, the team had won their seventh Ranji Trophy title after beating a spirited Maharashtra side in the final of the 2013-14 edition of Ranji Trophy at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. It was a comprehensive performance from Karnataka throughout the five-day match that resulted in them clinching the marquee game by seven wickets.
The toss went in the favour of Maharashtra captain Rohit Motwani and he elected to bat first. Maharashtra managed to post a decent total of 305 runs on the board on the back of a stunning 89 runs by Ankit Bawne. Chirag Khurana and Sangram Atitkar also made notable contributions by adding 64 and 50 runs respectively to the scoreboard.
Karnataka bat out Maharashtra
Batting in the second innings, Karnataka launched an assault on the opposition bowlers as they racked up a mammoth total of 515 runs on the board. KL Rahul and G Satish emerged as the wrecker-in-chief for their side by playing remarkable knocks of 131 and 117 runs respectively. The opening batsman Robin Uthappa had also played a sublime knock of 72 runs to help Karnataka take a massive lead.
The third innings saw Maharashtra again posting a 300+ total but it wasn’t sufficient in front of Karnataka’s star-studded batting line-up. For Maharashtra, Kedar Jadhav rose to the occasion and hammered a knock of 112 runs. Bawne was again impressive with his knock of 61 runs.
For Karnataka, Shreyas Gopal and Vinay Kumar scalped four wickets each in the third innings while Abhimanyu Mithun had two to his name. Thus, Maharashtra could score only 366 runs and Karnataka was given a below-par target of 157 runs.
Chasing a total of 156 runs was a cakewalk for Karnataka. All the top-five batsmen including Robin Uthappa, KL Rahul, Amit Verma, Manish Pandey and Karun Nair scored runs for their team in the second innings to reach the target of 157 runs within 40.5 overs. This resulted in Karnataka scripting an easy victory against Maharashtra in a high-scoring game and registering their seventh victory in Ranji Trophy.
