A triple century partnership between openers Robin Uthappa (162) and Rowland Barrington (batting 169) propelled Karnataka to 357 for 1 in the first innings against Madhya Pradesh on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group A encounter in Bangalore on Thursday.

Put into bat, Karnataka had a superb start. Uthappa scored his runs off 232 balls, with 23 boundaries and a six, while Barrington hit 21 boundaries in his unbeaten knock, which came off 265 balls.

Madhya Pradesh have only themselves to blame for the plight they are in as they dropped both the openers, Uthappa once, and Barrington twice.

After he completed his century, Barrington was dropped twice by Abbas Ali in the same over.

At close, skipper Sujith Somasundar (9) was keeping Barrington company.

Earlier, Uthappa was dropped by the rival captain Amay Khurasia off Sanjay Pandey when he was on 22 with the total 54. He was finally caught at slip by D Bundela off Y Gowalkar with the score at 324.

Scorecard

Karnataka (1st innings):
A Uthappa c Bundela b Golwalkar 162
B Rowland not out 169
S Somasunder not out 9

Extras: (b 1, w 3, nb 13) 17

Total: (1 wicket, 90 overs) 357

To bat: V Naidu, V Bharadwaj, S Binny, C Raghu, S Joshi, D Ganesh, R Vinay Kumar, N Aiyappa.

Fall of wickets: 1-324.

Bowling: Pandey 21-0-94-0, S Pitre 13-3-50-0, Bundela 15-2-33-0, Hirwani 15-1-59-0, Golwalkar 21-1-94-1, Abbas Ali 5-0-26-0.