Duleep Trophy: Karthik stands tall amid ruins

BANGALORE: At 81 for five on Day One of the Duleep Trophy quarter-final, South Zone were down and out for the count.
Impressive bowling by rookie fast bowler Umesh Yadav as also the more experienced Pankaj Singh had served to put Central Zone well on top when Dinesh Karthik stepped up to play an innings of real quality.
It was counter-attacking at its best, the wicketkeeper-batsman putting together an incredible 113-ball 153 to save his team the blushes and also provide them a chance to stay in the match.
It was a star-studded South batting line-up that took the field on Thursday that had an extra batsman forced on them, one thought.
Perhaps skipper VVS Laxman (or whoever it was who took the decision) had an inkling that that it would not do to just have Robin Uthappa, Rahul Dravid, S Badrinath, Karthik and Laxman himself and so the need to have a cushion in another batsman at six at the cost of a fifth bowler, a decision that just may come to haunt them.
Whatever the case may have been, had it not been for numbers seven (Karthik no less), eight and nine, South would have been defending a sub-100 score rather than the eventual 329 that they put together at run-a-minute.
Laxman had said on Wednesday that he expected the Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch to provide some assistance to the quick bowlers during the first hour on Day One, more so with the Kookaburra ball in use.
Brief scores:
South Zone (I Innings): 329 in 73.5 overs (Dinesh Karthik 153, M Suresh 58, Pankaj Singh 2-77, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2-68, Umesh Yadav 5-76). Central Zone (I Innings): 30 for no loss (Tanmay Srivastava batting 13, Shivakant Shukla batting 11).