Vijay Hazare Trophy: Karnataka thumps Rajasthan to earn quarterfinal berth

Siddharth KV and skipper Manish Pandey added 104-runs for the unbroken second-wicket stand to power Karnataka to a comfortable win over Rajasthan in its 200-run chase.

FILE PHOTO: Manish Pandey finished the match off in style with a six over mid-wicket of leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi to get to his half-century.

Pacer V. Vyshak’s four-wicket haul (4/22) and K.V. Siddharth’s unbeaten 85 (120b, 6x4) ensured Karnataka had an easy eight-wicket win over Rajasthan in the pre-quarterfinal match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy at the K.L. Saini Stadium in Jaipur on Sunday.

Asked to bat first, Rajasthan made 199, riding on skipper Deepak Hooda’s brilliant 109 (109b, 9x4, 5x6). His knock helped his side post a respectable score after being reduced to 19/5 by the eighth over. 

Karnataka’s chase was set up by opener R. Samarth’s 54 who added 75-runs for the second wicket stand with Siddharth. Even as fellow opener Devdutt Padikkal struggled, Samarth looked fluent finding quick boundaries.

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Later Siddharth and skipper Manish Pandey added 104-runs for the unbroken second-wicket stand to see Karnataka home. Pandey finished off in style with a six over mid-wicket of leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi to get to his half-century.

Earlier, in nippy conditions, pacer Prasidh Krishna gave the first breakthrough for Karnataka when he had opener Abhijeet Tomar caught at slips. Soon Vyshak ran through the Rajasthan middle-order batsmen with four wickets.

He had Manender Singh trapped leg-before and Mahipal Lomror bowled. He could have also had Hooda for zero, had Siddharth held on to a simple catch at covers. 

In the eighth over, Salman Khan tried to pull Vyshak only to top-edge to the fine-leg fielder and two balls later, Kamlesh Nagarkotti cut one straight to point.

After getting his eye in, Hooda let loose finding boundaries easily, especially against the Karnataka spinners K. Gowtham and Pravid Dubey. He was supported by Samarpit Joshi, who played sensibly by turning over the strike to his captain. 

They added 118 runs in 133 balls for the sixth-wicket stand. But once Joshi was dismissed, the rest of the batsmen did not show a similar kind of support for Hooda. 

Rajasthan committed the cardinal sin of not playing 50 overs and paid for it by crashing out of the tournament.

The scores: Rajasthan 199 in 41.4 overs (Deepak Hooda 109, V Vyshak 4/22) lost to Karnataka 204/2 in 43.4 overs (R. Samarth 54, K.V. Siddharth 85 n.o., Manish Pandey 52 n.o.).

Vidarbha 258/7 in 50 overs (Atharva Taide 51, Ganesh Satish 40, Yash Rathod  57, Akshay Wadkar 41) bt Tripura 224 in 49.2 overs (Bishal Ghosh 44, Bikramkumar Das 61, Yash Thakur 4/45)

Madhya Pradesh 234 in 49.2 overs (Shubham Sharma 83, Rajat Patidar 46, ) lost to Uttar Pradesh 237/5 in 49.1 overs (Akshdeep Nath 78, Rinku Singh 58 n.o.).