Indian domestic Champion Cricket Statistician Sri C Keshava Murthy pens the statistical highlights of Karnataka-Saurashtra Ranji Trophy highlights, in an exclusive article to the viewers of crickick.com. Read on

Highlights of the Ranji Trophy match between Karnataka and Saurashtrarashtra at Rajkot from 15th to 18th December 2009

This was Karnataka’s 354th match and Saurashtr’as 252nd match; Results at the end of the game read as under

Team	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn
Karnataka	354	161	55	138
Saurashtra	252	031	93	123

Head to Head count between Karnataka and Saurashtra read thus: Played-5, Won by Karnataka 2, Lost by Karnataka – 2 and Drawn-1

Karnataka finished on a high note in league stage of 2009-10, by winning the last league match against Saurashtra This win provided Karnataka’s fourth outright win in six matches this season.

Karnataka is slated to take on Punjab in one of the Quarter finals, the match being played at Mysore for four days starting from Dec 24, 2009

Karnataka’s victory by six wickets at Rajkot is its second win against Saurashtra in five outings. The other win came at Bangalore in 1998/99 when it had won the game by 199 runs

Ganesh Satish scored his second century of the season in his seventh match when he scored 120 in the first innings of this match. He became the fifth Karnataka batsman to score a hundred against Saurashtra. His hundred represent the sixth hundred. The other are

No	Batsmen	Runs	Venue	Season
1	JArunkumar	151	Bangalore	1998/99
2	RVUthappa	108	Rajkot	2006/07
3	BMRowland	100*	Rajkot	2006/07
4	KBPawan	120	Mysore	2007/08
5	RVUthappa	139	Mumbai	2008/09

AA Verma’s 68 in this game represeents his third fifty which came in his eighth Ranji match. The other two fifties are – 157 not out against Bengal and 150 against Maharashtra in this season.

Manish Pandey’s twin fifties in this game – 55 and 68 represent his seventh fifty in 11 matches which includes two hundreds. He has now aggregated 553 runs in six matches this season. Pandey became the first Karnataka batsman to amass 500 plus runs this season.

Pandey’s 500 plus run aggregate provide 45th occasion of a Karnataka batsman aggregating 500 plus runs in a season. BP Patel holds the record for scoring 500 runs in a season on most occasions – he has done it six times. The record most runs scored in a season for Karnataka is credited Vijay Bharadwaj who had scored 1280 runs in 10 matches in 1998/99.

KB Pawan (486 runs) and Amit Verma (481 runs) are also on the threshold of aggregating 500 runs this season. They require 14 and 19 runs respectively to reach the milestone

RV Uthappa recorded his 12th fifty in his 39th Ranji Trophy match. This is his third fifty during this season.

Twin fifties by G Satish {120 and 68*} and Manish Pandey {55 and 68} provide the 30th and 31^st occasion of a Karnataka batsmen scoring fifties in both innings in a Ranji Trophy match.

Saurashtra’s total of 407 in the second innings is its highest team total against Karnataka. Its previous best was 354 at Rajkot in 2006/07.

SP Jobanputra’s 53 in the first innings represent his third fifty in 42 matches. CR Pathak registered his fourth fifty when he scored 88 in the second innings which came in his 12^th match. CA Pujara registered his tenth half century and 21^st fifty when he scored 66. He was playing his 32^nd match.

CA Pujara completed 3000 runs in Ranji Trophy when he was on 23 during his second innings knock of 66. At the end of the game his aggregate stood at 3043.

PS Mehta scored his fourth fifty, when he made 77 not out in Saurashtra’s second innings, which represent his highest individual score. His previous best was 73 against Bengal at Kolkata this season