Ranji Trophy: Karnataka beats Tripura by an innings

Karnataka ended its wait for a first Ranji Trophy win with an innings and 116-run victory over Tripura in their Elite Group B match on Thursday. The home team wrapped up proceedings shortly after lunch on the final day. Contrary to expectations, seamers V.

Vyshak and Manvanth Kumar did the early damage on a last-day pitch, claiming two wickets apiece. L. Shrijith. Manvanth then dismissed Tripura skipper Manisankar Murasingh for eight. Shrijith followed up with a stunning one-handed catch to send Sentu Sarkar back for 15.

Leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal cleaned up the tail soon after the break.

Match figures

Tripura were bowled out for 180 in 78.1 overs in their second innings. Sridam Paul top-scored with 50. Bikramkumar Das made 26, Babul Dey 28, and Mandeep Singh remained not out on 20. Shreyas Gopal finished with figures of 23.1-6-36-5. Vyshak returned 15-6-31-2 and Manvanth Kumar 10-1-42-2. Bhatkal bowled 8-1-16-0 and Shikhar 22-5-52-0. The fall of wickets was 1-33, 2-46, 3-96, 4-128, 5-133, 6-145, 7-163, 8-178, 9-179.

Group context

The victory and the seven points it earned offered Karnataka some breathing room. The side had managed just two points from its previous two outings.

The Ranji Trophy is an annual domestic first-class cricket championship played in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, with teams representing the various member associations of the BCCI taking part.

In the 2025–26 season, the competition was contested by 38 teams, including at least one team from each of the 28 states and four of the eight union territories. Jammu and Kashmir defeated Karnataka in the final to win their maiden Ranji title.

Coach’s assessment

Karnataka head coach Vinay Kumar said he was pleased to register his first win in charge but admitted the team’s performance had been far from convincing. “If you ask me, we definitely could have done much, much better as a team.

The kind of standard we have as the Karnataka team — a much better performance is expected from the players,” Vinay said. He added that Karnataka’s lack of attacking intent with the bat against an inexperienced Tripura attack was hardly befitting a team with championship ambitions.

“We could have definitely batted a bit more freely. But when I spoke to the batters, they said the pitch was not that easy. It was keeping low. With smaller teams like this (Tripura), they know their business and stick to the basics.

That is why the batters felt it was not that easy to score runs,” Vinay said. “However, we can’t give that kind of excuse. We could have been a bit more aggressive, especially because we hadn’t won our previous two games,” he added.

Tripura second innings scorecard

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Sources

• The Hindu

• Wikipedia: Ranji Trophy (background)

• Photo: Rajarshi hore, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)