With his maiden triple hundred Karun Nair had taken Karnataka’s first innings lead to 484 runs at stumps on Day 3 at the Wankhede Stadium in the Ranji Trophy final. Unbeaten on 310 he is currently the second highest individual run scorer in a Ranji Final. The middle-order batsman surpassed Vijay Hazare, who held the second position since 1946-47 after scoring 288 for Baroda against Holkar at Vadodara. Nair also became only the second batsman in the trophy’s rich history to score a triple-ton in a final as he sits behind Gul Mohammad who had scored 319 for Baroda against Holkar at Vadodara in 1946-47. KL Rahul (188) and Nair forged a record 386-run partnership for the sixth wicket. Their alliance ended when Rahul was dismissed by off-spinner Malolan Rangarajan. There was little that the bowlers could do as the pair dictated the course and added 123 runs in the first session on the third morning. Resuming his innings on 131 runs, Rahul was the first to reach the 150-run mark with a six off Aswin Crist while Nair who was got there a little later with a single. Rahul and Nair were going neck and neck as they calmly maintained a steady flow of runs. Nair slammed Malolan Rangarajan for six over long-on and followed it up with a boundary as he edged past Rahul. Continuing to score freely and and boundaries coming with ease, Nair drove Vijay Shankar through covers for a couple of boundaries in an over to inch towards his double-hundred. Few overs later, with two back-to-back boundaries and a single off Baba Aparajith, he reached within a run of the coveted 200-run mark. The 200th runs came at the stroke of lunch. After the first session, Karnataka’s score was 446 for 5. The breakthrough finally came for Tamil Nadu in the sixth over post lunch when Rahul holed out to Vijay Shankar at long-on. Shreyas Gopal scored 11 before brushing one with the bat to Dinesh Karthik behind the wicket. Vinay Kumar then joined Nair who looked invincible as he continued to milk the TN attack. With a boundary off Shankar behind square-leg, he posted the highest individual score by a Karnataka batsman in a Ranji Trophy final surpassing the legendary GR Vishwanath's 247 against Uttar Pradesh in 1977-78. Well into the final session of the day, TN took the new ball and L Balaji and Crist hit the deck hard and toiled to create a breakthrough. But Nair and Vinay continued to coast along. Nair whipped Rangarajan to the fence towards the fag end of day’s play to reach his triple-ton. Brief scores: End of Day 1: TN 1st inn 134 all out in 62.4 overs (A Mukund 35, Vinay Kumar 5/34, A Mithun 3/54); Karnataka 1st inn 45/4 in 14 overs (A Mithun 14*, L Balaji 3/10) End of Day 2: Karnataka 1st inn 323/5 in 99 overs (Karun Nair 130*, KL Rahul 131*) End of Day 3: Karnataka 1st inn 618/7 in 189 overs (Karun Nair 310*, KL Rahul 188, R Vinay Kumar 41*)