Vijay Hazare Trophy | Vyshak, Siddharth set up Karnataka’s easy win

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

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

Finishing it in style

Later, Siddharth and skipper Manish Pandey added 104 runs for the second wicket to see Karnataka home.

Pandey finished things in style with a six over mid-wicket off leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi, also getting to his half-century.

Earlier, put in, Rajasthan made 199, riding on skipper Deepak Hooda’s brilliant 109 (109b, 9×4, 5×6). His knock helped his side recover after being reduced to 19 for five by the eighth over.

Nippy conditions

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 picking up four wickets. He had Manender Singh trapped leg-before and Mahipal Lomoror bowled. He could have also had Hooda for nought 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 fine-leg and two balls later, Kamlesh Nagarkotti cut one straight to point.

Hooda, once he got his eye in, let loose finding boundaries easily, especially against spinners K. Gowtham and Pravid Dubey. He was supported by Samarpit Joshi, who played sensibly by rotating the strike well.

The two added 118 runs off 133 balls for the sixth wicket. But once Joshi was dismissed, the rest of the batters did not show the same 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.).