Mumbai showed enough tenacity on the first day of the Ranji trophy final, but were still bowled out for a reasonably paltry total of 233 against Karnataka. In reply, Karnataka were 15/1 by the time the stumps were called.
The Mumbai captain Wasim Jaffer won the toss and elected to bat first on a grassy wicket. Sahil Kukreja was dismissed in the very first over, whereas Jaffer and Rahane followed soon after to be reduced to 20/3.
Omkar Khanvilkar and Abhishek Nayar then joined hands and played reasonably good knocks, before Abhimanyu Mithun got the better of both; scoring 25 and 37 respectively.
In the end, it was the wicket-keeper Vinayak Samant who pulled the side out of trouble from 100/5 and 106/6 to bring them close to their final total. Samant scored 67 and was the last man out, with useful contributions from Ramesh Powar (23), Iqbal Abdullah (30) and Dhawal Kulkarni (20).
Vinay Kumar took four wickets, whereas Mithun ended with three after a first spell which hadn’t gone his way.
In reply, Karnataka lost their captain, Robin Uthappa very cheaply, before Vinay Kumar saw through the stumps with KB Pawan without further loss. With the track seemingly assisting the pace bowlers, and the Mumbai side consisting of three internationals in Ajit Agarkar, Avishkar Salvi and Abhishek Nayar apart from Dhawal Kulkarni, life may not be too easy for the home side!