Punjab skipper and opener Shubman Gill (102) struck a classy century but failed to save his team from an innings defeat to Karnataka in their Ranji Trophy Group C match in Bengaluru Saturday. (More Cricket News)

“The final was really intense; the Chinese were breathing down our necks throughout the game and made it really difficult for us to create a clear goal scoring chance,” Harmanpreet said in a Hockey India release.

Gill added 95 runs on the third day to his overnight 7 to score 102 from 171 balls from which he struck 14 fours and three sixes. He scored his first fifty off 119 balls and the next 50 runs came in just 40 balls.

He was the eighth batsmen dismissed in the Punjab second essay after they conceded a huge 420-run lead in the first innings.

Punjab had scored a paltry 55 in their first innings with Gill contributing just four runs. They were 24 for 2 in 13 overs in their second innings at stumps on the second day Friday.

In the end, Punjab were shot out for 213 in 63.4 overs in their second innings to lose by an innings and 207 runs.

Karnataka, who had made 475 in 122.1 overs in their first innings with Ravichandran Smaran (203) scoring his maiden first class double hundred,pnxbet collected seven points, including a bonus point for an innings win.

Pacer Yashovardhan Parantap and leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal took three wickets each for Karnataka during Punjab's second innings.

Gill had failed to impress in the recent five-match Test series in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The 25-year-old right-hander was unable to put up any significant contribution.

He played in five innings in three Testsjilipark, scoring just 93 runs with a highest score of 31 at an average of 18.60. He was dropped for the fourth Test but came back in the fifth and last game as captain Rohit Sharma sat himself out. But Gill could just 20 and 13 in the last Test.