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.
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