Rahul-Smaran miss rare feat but Karnataka ease into final
Karnataka will face Jammu & Kashmir in the final of the 2025/26 Ranji Trophy. In the semi-final at Lucknow, they amassed 736 and bowled out Uttarakhand for 233, and batted a second time despite a 503-run lead. A second-innings total of 323 – a whopping 1,059 across the two innings – helped them set an improbable 827: Uttarakhand finished on 260-6.
Karnataka’s massive first-innings total was built around captain Devdutt Padikkal’s 232, while KL Rahul (141) and R Smaran (135) made hundreds as well.
Also read: Ravichandran Smaran, a future all-format star in the making
Rahul batted down the order in the second innings as wicketkeeper Kruthik Krishna opened with Mayank Agarwal. Getting together at 122-4, Smaran and Rahul put on 168 for the fifth wicket. Smaran eventually fell for 127, his second hundred of the game.
With an injured Padikkal unable to bat, Karnataka quickly folded for 323. Rahul hit out towards the end, but could not get to a second hundred: he was left stranded on a 103-ball 86 with five fours and five sixes.
Had Rahul got a second hundred, he and Smaran would have become the 11th pair of teammates to score twin tons in the same first-class match. Four of the previous instances have come in Test cricket. The list includes two pairs of brothers, Bill and Tip Foster, and (in a Test match), Ian and Greg Chappell.
1st Semi-Final, Uttarakhand vs Karnataka
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- Ball by ball Over
Two teammates scoring twin tons in the same first-class match
| Inns1 | Inns2 | Batter | Team | Opposition | Venue | Season | Test? |
| 140 | 172* | Bill Foster | Worcestershire | Hampshire | New Road | 1899 | |
| 134 | 101* | Tip Foster | |||||
| 119 | 125* | Ces Dacre | Gloucestershire | Worcestershire | New Road | 1933 | |
| 122 | 111* | Wally Hammond | |||||
| 120 | 102 | Jack Badcock | South Australia | Victoria | Melbourne | 1940/41 | |
| 130 | 103* | Ron Hamence | |||||
| 143 | 156 | Uday Merchant | Bombay | Maharashtra | Poona | 1948/49 | |
| 131 | 160 | Dattu Phadkar | |||||
| 145 | 121 | Ian Chappell | Australia | New Zealand | Wellington | 1973/74 | Yes |
| 247* | 133 | Greg Chappell | |||||
| 109 | 100* | Azhar Ali | Pakistan | Australia | Abu Dhabi | 2014/15 | Yes |
| 101 | 101* | Misbah-ul-Haq | |||||
| 104 | 101 | Regis Chakabva | Zimbabwe A | Ireland | Harare | 2015/16 | |
| 138 | 118 | Malcolm Waller | |||||
| 102 | 108 | Dhananjaya de Silva | Sri Lanka | Bangladesh | Sylhet | 2023/24 | Yes |
| 102 | 164 | Kamindu Mendis | |||||
| 193 | 119* | Armaan Jaffer | Mizoram | Bihar | Patna | 2025/26 | |
| 101 | 101 | Joseph Lalthankhuma | |||||
| 137 | 101 | Tom Latham | New Zealand | West Indies | Mount Maunganui | 2025/26 | Yes |
| 227 | 100 | Devon Conway |
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