Bengal defeats Karnataka to enter first Ranji final in 13 years
Kolkata: Mukesh Kumar ran through Karnataka's second innings with a career-best six-wicket haul as Bengal hammered their star-studded opponents by 174 runs to enter their first Ranji Trophy final in 13 years here on Tuesday.
The low-profile pacer, who had dismissed India regular K L Rahul in Karnataka's first innings, became the hero in the second essay with his 6/61 as Bengal took less than two hours to dismiss Karnataka on day four.
Resuming their monumental chase of 352 at 98 for three, Karnataka lost their remaining seven wickets for 79 runs in 16.3 overs. The penultimate day's proceedings lasted just 115 minutes after which the hero-of-the-day Mukesh Kumar was seen carried on his shoulders by Akash Deep.
Bengal, who won their previous Ranji title during Sourav Ganguly's debut season way back in 1989-90, had lost to Mumbai by 132 runs in their last final appearance in 2007.
Bengal will face the winners of Gujarat and Saurashtra clash, underway in Rajkot, in the final from March 9 and it will be an away match for them.
Bengal also halted a third treble bid by Karnataka who recently were crowned the domestic one-day (Vijay Hazare Trophy) and T20 (Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy) champions. Karnataka's last treble had come in 2014-15 when they had achieved the feat twice on the trot.
Mukesh Kumar, who had previous best figures of 6/62, looked at his ominous best taking five wickets in just 60 balls with an imperious spell that read 9-4-28-5.
He opened his account in the third over of the day with India batsman Manish Pandey (12) edging it to Shreevats Goswami behind the stumps.
Then in his next over he dismissed K V Siddharth (0) and S Sharath (0) off successive deliveries to snuff out any revival hopes by heavyweights Karnataka.
First the inform Siddharth fell to an away going delivery and was caught by skipper Abhimanyu Easwaran at the slip, and on the next ball Mukesh bolwed an inswinger to trap the wicketkeeper-batsman.
Talented 19-year-old Karnataka batsman Devdutt Padikkal, who was season's leading run-getter in white ball cricket, was the lone crusader as Karnataka battled to avoid a third semifinal defeat in a row.
Padikkal, who came in at No 3 to accommodate Rahul at the top, hit seven elegant boundaries but Mukesh had his say to dismiss the batsman en route to his fourth five-wicket haul from 21 first-class matches.
Krishnappa Gowtham (22) and Abhimanyu Mithun counter attacked Bengal with a quick 24-run stand for the eighth wicket but it only delayed the inevitable with first innings hero Ishan Porel breaking the partnershi.
Gowtham tried to smash Porel's widish delivery over the off-side region, only to be caught by substitute Shreyan Chakraborty.
And what followed was a noble gesture by Bengal's man-of-the-match Anustup Majumdar, who had turned it around for the home side with his unbeaten 149 in the first innings. Put in, Bengal were 67/6 but Majumdar's second successive century took Bengal to a match-winning 312.
Known for his unique celebrations, the 21-year-old Porel, who is the youngest member of the side, was given a shoe-shine polish by 35-year-old Majumdar, the seniormost member showing the camaraderie in the side.
Thereafter it was just a matter of time before Akash Deep (2/6) cleaned up the big-hitting Abhimanyu Mithun (38) to complete the victory.
Ishan Porel, who grabbed a five-wicket haul in the first innings, took 2/58 that included the prized-scalp of Rahul with peach of an inswinger on Monday.
Playing without the suspended pacer Ashok Dinda, their leading wicket taker for last eight seasons, the three-pronged Bengal pace attack once again was up for task, taking all the 20 wickets on offer.
Brief Scores
Bengal 312 and 161. Karnataka 122 and 177; 55.3 overs (Devdutt Paddikkal 62; Mukesh Kumar 6/61). Bengal won by 174 runs.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
