This Ranji Trophy, in many ways has been the season of wickets tumbling like nine pins. Aswin Crist’s maiden five-wicket haul helped Tamil Nadu snare a narrow advantage – a 23-run lead – on Friday in their quarter-final against Karnataka in Visakhapatnam.

Not for the first time this season, a green top came under the scanner as 14 wickets fell in the day. Karnataka’s batting has been a let down for much of the season. Vinay Kumar’s side had no answer for a rejuvenated Tamil Nadu bowling attack and were shot out for a lowly 88. Tamil Nadu finished with a slender 23-run lead.

The Odisha-Gujarat battle at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur witnessed several twists and turns. Despite the disciplined Odisha bowlers getting on top of the in-form Gujarat batsmen, Parthiv Patel’s men ended the day on a positive note with Chirag Gandhi and Rush Kalaria patiently stitching together a 126-run stand.

Defending champions Mumbai also found themselves in a spot of bother at 34/4 against Hyderabad at Raipur. However, a crisp counter-attack, led by Aditya Tare, bailed Mumbai out of trouble. The day, though, belonged to Siddhesh Lad, who finished as the only centurion among all the four matches.

The script was somewhat similar to the Mumbai-Hyderabad and the Gujarat-Odisha games in the Haryana-Jharkhand encounter in Baroda. Spinner Shahbaz Nadeem had put Jharkhand ahead before Haryana’s resurgent lower-order moved the score to 251/7 at the close of play.

Crist’s Christmas party

Tamil Nadu pacer Crist’s 6/31 was by no means an ordinary feat. Karnataka had strengthened their brittle batting order with KL Rahul, triple-centurion Karun Nair, and Manish Pandey. Crist, along with T Natarajan, skittled out Karnataka for a paltry 88 after electing to bowl first. The thick layer of grass that covered the Vizag wicket helped the Karnataka bowlers, too, but Tamil Nadu just about did enough to get their noses ahead in the contest.

Dinesh Karthik, playing in his 100th domestic fixture was at the crease with Abhinav Mukund at the close of play. Tamil Nadu have a 23-run lead on a day where 14 wickets fell in the day.

Hyderabad let advantage slip

If Hyderabad lose this contest, they will be kicking themselves after watching the first session of the day’s play to wonder how it all went wrong from there. Mumbai, the 41-time champions were brought to their knees at 34/4.

S Badrinath’s side ran out of ideas from there as Tare led from the front with a fighting half-century and building a century partnership with Siddhesh Lad, who ended the day as the star of the show. Tare’s good work was carried forward by Lad, who completed his century in the closing stages of the day’s play.

Brief scores:

Karnataka 88 (Manish Pandey 28; Aswin Crist 6/31, T Natarajan 3/18) trail Tamil Nadu 111/4 (Vijay Shankar 34, Dinesh Karthik 31 not out; Sreenath Aravind 2/14) by 23 runs

Haryana 251/7 (Rajat Paliwal 42, Chaitanya Bishnoi 41, Sanjay Pahal 38 not out; Shahbaz Nadeem 5/75) vs Jharkhand

Mumbai 250/5 (Siddhesh Lad 101 not out, Aditya Tare 73; Chama Milind 3/64, Mohammed Siraj 2/58) vs Hyderabad

Gujarat 197/6 (Chirag Gandhi 62 not out, Rush Kalaria 59 not out; Deepak Behera 3/36, Basant Mohanty 2/48) vs Odisha