S Aravind finished the league states of the tournament with nine wickets © PTI
Sreenath Aravind’s four-wicket haul set up Karnataka’s six-wicket win over Goa in Chennai. Karnataka, who lost Mayank Agarwal early in their chase of 121, coasted to victory in the 12th over courtesy an unbeaten 13-ball 32 from Pawan Deshpande. R Vinay Kumar, the captain, who promoted himself to open the innings top scored with 34. Karnataka finished their league engagements with four wins on the bounce after losing their tournament opener to Tamil Nadu.
Eight Goa batsmen got into double digits, but couldn’t convert their starts. Swapnil Asnodkar, who opened the innings, top scored with 34, in which he hit three fours and a six. At one stage, Goa had recovered from an early wobble to move to 80 for 3, before losing two wickets, including that of Asnodkar, in the space of four deliveries to trigger the slide. Aravind aside, J Suchith, Deshpande and K Gowtham picked up one wicket apiece for Karnataka.
Baba Aparajith struck two fours and two sixes in his unbeaten 39-ball 51 © BCCI
Baba Aparajith’s unbeaten 51 steered Tamil Nadu home in against Kerala, but it wasn’t enough to top the table because of an inferior net run rate. Tamil Nadu chased down Kerala’s 128 for 6 in the penultimate over with four wickets in hand. This was their fourth win in five matches.
Kerala, who elected to bat, lost a clutch of wickets before being rescued by Sachin Baby, who made an unbeaten 53. His 51-run stand for the fifth wicket with Jalaj Saxena gave their bowlers a total to defend. Aswin Crist, the medium pacer, was the pick of Tamil Nadu’s bowlers, finishing with 3 for 22.
Kerala struck early to remove openers N Jagadeesan and M Vijay to leave Tamil Nadu on 30 for 2. That became 68 for 3 when Vijay Shankar, the captain, was sent back by Raiphi Gomez. Aparajith then steered the side through a wobble, in which they lost the wickets of Baba Indrajith and R Sathish, to clinch victory. Sanjay Yadav added 29 with Aparajith to complete the chase.
G Hanuma Vihari top scored for Andhra with 49 © BCCI
Legspinner D Swaroop Kumar picked five wickets as Andhra beat Hyderabad by 11 runs to record their second win of the competition. Hyderabad, who wiped out more than half their target courtesy Tanmay Agarwal’s 32-ball 49, collapsed after the halfway mark of their innings; they slipped from 85 for 2 to 99 for 7, before eventually being bowled out for 129. P Girinath Reddy, the medium pacer, ran through the lower order to finish with 3 for 19.
Andhra, who elected to bat, posted 140 thanks largely to captain Hanuma Vihari, who made 49. Ricky Bhui was the only other batsman to cross 20. Mohammad Siraj, the fast bowler, picked up four wickets to trigger an alarming slide that resulted in Andhra losing their last eight wickets for 37 runs.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo