The Objective: "Recapture the glory".
Karnataka were crowned back-to-back Ranji champions based on the strength of their bowling superiority and timely contributions from various batsmen along the way. It was expected that after such domination of the local circuit, the team was bound to lose some of its gems as they would have been spotted by the national selectors and asked to report for country duty.
Strange as it may seem, attrition was not the deciding factor in Karnataka failing to make it to the playoffs for the first time since the 2007-08 campaign. Karnataka finished a point off the top 4 and would look back at 3 main factors:
- That opening match against Assam where they conceded the first innings lead and could not get 5 more wickets on Day 4
- That home game against Haryana where Sehwag magic and poor batting led to conceding of First Innings Lead and Karnataka, at the end, battled to avoid defeat
- The 3 drawn matches in all where Karnataka bowled atleast 80 overs in the 4th innings without going through the opposition.
Agreed that the opening match may have featured some hangover from 2 largely successful campaigns. But an interesting sidenote is the events that unfolded on day 4.
It was the 4th of October, 2015. Assam were 30/1 chasing an improbable 388 for victory. The match was supposed to start 30 minutes early. However, communication problems and bad luck led to the team missing the bus and hiring auto rickshaws to reach the stadium.
The captain ended up being driven to the football stadium (the more popular stadium in Assam especially after the introduction of ISL) instead of the cricket stadium (language barriers), minutes before the scheduled start of play.
This led to an additional 6kms travel to get to the cricket stadium and sure must have had a not so positive impact in the preparation of the squad in terms of warm up and state of mind.
But fairplay to Assam for the first innings. Amit Verma, a former Karnataka middle order batsman played the Karnataka bowling attack very well enroute to a century on day 2 that was the turning point in the match.
Karnataka were crowned back-to-back Ranji champions based on the strength of their bowling superiority and timely contributions from various batsmen along the way. It was expected that after such domination of the local circuit, the team was bound to lose some of its gems as they would have been spotted by the national selectors and asked to report for country duty.
Strange as it may seem, attrition was not the deciding factor in Karnataka failing to make it to the playoffs for the first time since the 2007-08 campaign. Karnataka finished a point off the top 4 and would look back at 3 main factors:
- That opening match against Assam where they conceded the first innings lead and could not get 5 more wickets on Day 4
- That home game against Haryana where Sehwag magic and poor batting led to conceding of First Innings Lead and Karnataka, at the end, battled to avoid defeat
- The 3 drawn matches in all where Karnataka bowled atleast 80 overs in the 4th innings without going through the opposition.
Agreed that the opening match may have featured some hangover from 2 largely successful campaigns. But an interesting sidenote is the events that unfolded on day 4.
It was the 4th of October, 2015. Assam were 30/1 chasing an improbable 388 for victory. The match was supposed to start 30 minutes early. However, communication problems and bad luck led to the team missing the bus and hiring auto rickshaws to reach the stadium.
The captain ended up being driven to the football stadium (the more popular stadium in Assam especially after the introduction of ISL) instead of the cricket stadium (language barriers), minutes before the scheduled start of play.
This led to an additional 6kms travel to get to the cricket stadium and sure must have had a not so positive impact in the preparation of the squad in terms of warm up and state of mind.
But fairplay to Assam for the first innings. Amit Verma, a former Karnataka middle order batsman played the Karnataka bowling attack very well enroute to a century on day 2 that was the turning point in the match.
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