Vijay Hazare Trophy: Padikkal, Mithun guide Karnataka to win against Kerala

Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala are now locked in a three-way tie at the top on 12 points each, with the last round of games scheduled for Sunday.

Published : Feb 26, 2021 20:00 IST

File picture of Devdutt Padikkal.

Devdutt Padikkal’s unbeaten 126 (138b, 13x4, 2x6) and A. Mithun’s five-wicket haul (5/52) were the highlights as Karnataka came up with yet another power-packed performance to beat Kerala by nine wickets in an Elite Group C Vijay Hazare Trophy encounter at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Friday.

Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala are now locked in a three-way tie at the top on 12 points each, with the last round of games scheduled for Sunday.

Chasing 278, the home side romped home with more than four overs to spare. Padikkal put on 99 runs for the opening wicket with R. Samarth (62, 51b, 10x4) before combining with K.V. Siddharth (86 n.o., 84b, 5x4, 3x6) for a match-winning 180-run unbroken stand.

S. Sreesanth and Jalaj Saxena were economical, bowling a combined 18 overs for 74 runs. But every other bowler was taken to the cleaners, with M.D Nidheesh proving the costliest, conceding 58 from seven overs.

READ: AS IT HAPPENED

Earlier, Kerala, which was asked to bat first, lost inform batsmen Robin Uthappa (0) and Sanju Samson (3) with just four runs on the board before Vishnu Vinod (29, 48b, 3x4, 1x6) stabilised the innings in the company of Vathsal Govind (95, 124b, 7x4, 1x6).

The latter was involved in two crucial partnerships – 114 runs for the fourth wicket with Sachin Baby (54, 63b, 2x4, 1x6) and 50 runs for the fifth with Mohammed Azharuddeen (59 n.o., 38b, 2x4, 3x6).

However, Mithun removed Vathsal, Baby and Saxena to stop Kerala from going berserk at the end. Azharuddeen ensured that his team’s total was competitive but the Karnataka batsmen weren’t in agreement.

Summarised scores

At M Chinnaswamy Stadium: Kerala 277/8; 50 overs (Vathsal Govind 95, Mohammed Azharuddeen 59 not out, Sachin Baby 54; Abhimanyu Mithun 5/52) lost to Karnataka 279/1; 45.3 overs (Devdutt Padikkal 126 not out, Krishnamurthy Siddharth 86 not out, Ravikumar Samarth 62) by nine wickets.

At KSCA Cricket (3) Ground, Alur: Uttar Pradesh 346/6; 50 overs (Priyam Garg 115, Akshdeep Nath 93; Ananta Saha 3/66) beat Railways 276; 46.1 overs (Shivam Chaudhary 107, Saurabh Singh 51; Shivam Mavi 4/51, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/49) by 70 runs.

At KSCA Cricket (2) Ground, Alur: Bihar 255/7; 50 overs (Babul Kumar 78, Sakibul Gani 48; Shantanu Mishra 3/46) lost to Odisha 258/3; 48.1 overs (Shantanu Mishra 76, Sandeep Pattnaik 64, Kartik Biswal 53 not out, Ankit Yadav 43 not out) by seven wickets.