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Bhubaneswar, Nov 10: Orissa suffered their second outright loss of the Ranji Trophy season when they were defeated by Karnataka by an innings and 64 runs at Mysore, Tuesday. Deewali will definitely be without lights at the OCA as now the state team faces the prospect of being relegated to Group B.
Karanataka had declared their first innings on 400 for nine – a lead of 168 runs in the first innings. On a pitch that was not too bad, Orissa were bowled out for 104, a very low total, with the batsman failing to apply themselves. Stuart Binny (4/34) and Shreyas Gopal (3/43) played the lead role in demolishing the visitors.
Resuming the fourth day at zero for one, except for Anurag Sarangi (44,75b, 6×4) all the others fared poorly. There were five batsmen who got out for ducks, including skipper Biplab Samantray, who has been in horrendous form this season. Other than Sarangi, there were only three others who reached double figures, namely Natraj Behera (19), Pratik Das (11) and Suryakant Pradhan (14). The rest just came and went as Orissa collapsed in a heap.
Orissa lost their last six wickets for only 39 runs and it once more proved the ineptness of the batters. They lacked the will basically to stay in the middle and fight it out. A little more of application and dedication in the middle could have easily helped them achieve a point from the game. But that was not to be.
Brief scores: Orissa 232 and 104 (Anurag Sarangi 44; Stuart Binny 4/34, Shreyas Gopal 3/43) lost to Karnataka 400 by innings and 64 runs.
Biplab axed
In a drastic development, the OCA axed current skipper Biplab Samantray from the side and named Natraj Behera the skipper of the side for the upcoming away Ranji Trophy game against Haryana at Lahli to be played November 15-18. However, most of the other members of the side which suffered an innings defeat to Karnataka, Tuesday, save one or two were retained in the 16-member squad. The others to be dropped were Rajesh Dhupar and Amit Das. Govind Poddar has been named as Natraj’s deputy.
The squad: Natraj Behera, Subhrajit Sahoo, Govind Poddar, Anaurag Sarangi,Girija Rout, Pratik Das, Ranjit Singh, Haladhar Das, Basant Mohanty, Deepak Behera, Suryakant Pradhan, Alok Sahoo, Alok Mangaraj,Dhiraj Singh and Jayant Behera.
Other Group-A matches
(At Kolkata): Bengal 334 & 164; Vidarbha 202 & 191 (Ganesh Satish 96; P Ojha 4/60). Bengal won by 105 runs.
(At Rohtak): Haryana 168 & 111; Assam 120 & 160/4 (Amit Verma 51; AH Hooda 2/62). Assam won by six wickets.