Vijay Hazare Trophy – Centurions Karun and Padikkal star in Karnataka’s big win against Kerala

Holder Karnataka again turned chasing into a winning formula and crushed Kerala by eight wickets for its second consecutive win in the Vijay Hazare Trophy cricket tournament at the Narendra Modi Stadium B ground here on Friday.

Kerala’s scourge Karun Nair scored an unbeaten century (130 n.o., 130b, 14×4) while Devdutt Padikkal (124, 137b, 12×4, 3×6) smashed his second consecutive century as Karnataka comfortably overhauled a target of 285 for the loss of two wickets.

Akhil Scaria gave Kerala an early lift by trapping Mayank Agarwal (1) in front but Padikkal and Karun shut out any hopes by figuring in a match-winning partnership of 223 from 236 balls.

Karun took the charge initially playing the sweep shots, regular and reverse, against the spinners for boundaries and played effortlessly on a true wicket to complete his century. Padikkal was unhurried and struck the occasional big shots to progress to his ton.

Leg spinner Vignesh Puthur bowled with control but found little support as Padikkal and Karun took the game away from Kerala.

Earlier, left arm medium pacer Abhilash Shetty’s opening spell (3/24 from six overs) under helpful conditions reduced Kerala to 49/3.

Repairing the damage

B. Aparajith (71) and Akhil Scaria (27) repaired the damage by adding 77 runs for the fourth wicket and later Mohammed Azharuddeen (84 n.o.) and M.D. Nidheesh (34 n.o.) added 99 runs (from 88 balls) for the eighth wicket to enable Kerala post a competitive total.

Madhya Pradesh survived a late mini-collapse to score a two-wicket win over Tamil Nadu. Chasing 281, Yash Dubey (92) and Himanshu Mantri (90) put Madhya Pradesh on road to win with a second wicket stand of 178.

However, Madhya Pradesh lost wickets regularly and slipped form 208 for two to 271 for eight at the start of the 48th over. But Aryan Pandey smashed Gurjapneet Singh for a six to seal a win with four balls to spare.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu failed to build on to a fine start of 115 given by openers Sai Sudarshan (51) and N. Jagadeesan (55) and posted a sub-par total of 280.

Sai Sudharsan suffered an injury while running between the wickets and retired hurt briefly before coming back towards the end. The TN opener could miss the next game.