Dinesh makes it count with a ton

Chennai: Dinesh Karthik made the most of a reprieve to score a brisk hundred against Saurashtra on Friday. The TN wicket-keeper batsman, who was dropped at slips when on 25, said he grew in confidence after the “wake-up call“. “It was a loose shot after lunch and I was determined to make it count,“ said Dinesh.

The plan, Dinesh said, was to bat as long as possible to wear out the visitors.

“Initially, I tried to gauge the pace of the wicket and once I managed to do it, I began to play my shots. We wanted to score around 600, but we thought a total of 565 is good enough,“ he said.

It required a cautious approach when Saurashtra pacers were keeping it tight. Dinesh said it wa difficult to bat when he joined Abhinav in the middle. “They bowled at the right areas and the ball was nice and hard. We had to wait for the odd opportunities.

The wicket had some uneven bounce and odd balls were keeping low. Once I got a good feel of the conditions, I just went through,“ said Dinesh, who scored his 19th first-class century on Friday . Dinesh who put on a 240-run stand with Abhinav Mukund for the fourth wicket doffed his hat off for the left handed o p e n e r.

“It was a fantastic knock.His strength has always been to bat for long periods and that's exactly what he did. During the long partnership, we were trying to keep as simple as possible by rotating the strike and hitting the loose balls,“ Dinesh added.

Saurashtra's bowling spearhead Jaydev Unadkat who took four wickets said the catches that were dropped proved costly . “We missed one on Thursday when Abhinav was on 97.

That was a tough chance, but on a wicket like this those chances should have been taken to change the scenario of the match. But I still feel we have the batsmen to overhaul their total,“ said the left-arm pacer.

Vijay, Badri fined for dissent M. Vijay and S. Badrinath were on Friday fined 10 per cent of their match fee for showing dissent at umpires' decisions. Vijay who was adjudged caught behind on day one gestured to the leg-umpire stretching both his arms while Badrinath was not happy with an lbw decision. Match referee Sakthi Singh found the duo guilty of Level I offence.