Mayank Agarwal slams fifth consecutive ton

BENGALURU: Mayank Agarwal continued his blazing run, notching up a record fifth consecutive hundred to put Karnataka in a winning position against Railways on the penultimate day of their Ranji Trophy Group A clash at the Karnail Singh Stadium in New Delhi on Monday.
After a sizzling 173 in the first innings, Agarwal stroked his way to an unbeaten 104 to record centuries in each innings of a match and breach the 1000-run mark (1034) as Karnataka ended the day on 208 with an overall lead of 309 runs.With this feat, Agarwal equalled the record of Bombay's Rusi Modi (1944-45) and Delhi Ajay Sharma's (1996-97), who have recorded of five consecutive centuries in a single season.
With his unbeaten knock in the second innings, Mayank Agarwal became only the second player in the history of Karnataka Ranji Trophy to score centuries in each innings of a match after Kunal Kapoor who had scored 106 and 100 not out against Haryana at Hubballi in 2012/13. Agarwal had scored 173 in the first innings of this match.
After Railways were bowled out for 333 in reply to Karnataka's first innings tally of 434, the visitors' run feast continued in the second innings as R Samarth and Agarwal toyed with the rival bowlers, forging a fine 117-run partnership.
The stand ended when left-arm spinner Ambikeshwar Mishra trapped Samarth in the front. Thereafter, Agarwal and Nischal (41 not out) combined well for an unconquered 91-run stand to extend Karnataka's domination.
Having already secured a berth in the quarterfinals, Karnataka, with a huge lead, have an opportunity to finish their league run on a high with an outright victory.
Earlier, spinner Shreyas Gopal (4-102) and K Gowtham (3-70) wreaked havoc as Railways could add just 92 runs to their overnight tally. Centurion Mahesh Rawat (124) and Arindam Ghosh (91) attempted to revive the hosts innings with a double-century stand, adding to their overnight partnership of 178.
It was Shreyas, who broke the partnership dismissing Ghosh before returning to trap Rawat leg before. Soon after the pair departed, Karnataka bowlers cleaned up the remaining four wickets in a span of four overs.
SCOREBOARD
Karnataka (I Innings) 434
Railways (I Innings; o/N: 241/4): Arindam b Shreyas Gopal 91, Rawat lbw Shreyas 124, Manish Rao lbw Shreyas 0, Vidyadhar Kamath (not out) 27, Dhulap lbw Shreyas 1, Ambikeshwar lbw K Gowtham 1, Karan (run out) 0, Extras (NB-4, B-6, LB-2) 12. Total (All out; 98.4 overs) 333.
Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-62, 3-83, 4-83, 5-284, 6-284, 7-330, 8-332, 9-333.
Bowling: Mithun A 21-5-68-2, Vinay Kumar 3-1-4-0, Stuart Binny 15-3-45-0, Gowtham K 27-9-70-3, Shreyas Gopal 28.4-2-102-4, Samarth R 2-0-21-0, Karun Nair 2-0-15-0.
Karnataka (II Innings): Samarth lbw Ambikeshwar 56, Mayank (batting) 104, Nischal D (batting) 41. Extras (NB-2, B-5) 7. Total (1 wicket; 58.1 overs) 208.
Fall of wicket: 1-117.
Bowling: Karan Thakur 7-0-37-0, Manish Rao 1-0-7-0, Vinit Dhulap 21.1-2-64-0, Vidyadhar Kamath 8-1-29-0, Ambikeshwar Mishra 19-2-56-1, Shivakant Shukla 2-0-10-0.