Bengal rout Karnataka, enter semis
Vijay Hazare Trophy: Holders score 10-wicket win to set up Delhi clash
The seam trio of Shami Ahmed, Veer Pratap Singh and Laxmi Shukla shared eight wickets among them as defending champions Bengal crushed Karnataka by 10 wickets to set up a semifinal clash with Delhi in the National one-day championship for the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Thursday.
Electing to field after winning the toss in the third quarterfinal, Bengal skittled out Karnataka for a paltry 127 runs in 32.1 overs as Shami (3-32), Veer Pratap (3-40) and Shukla (2-20) ripped through their batting line-up at the Port Trust Diamond Jubilee Stadium.
At one stage, Karnataka were 57 for six but Manish Pandey (28), Karun Nair (22) and skipper R Vinay Kumar (20) took the team to 127 before they were dismissed.
The Bengal openers, Shreevats Goswami and Wriddhiman Saha, knocked off the target in 28.3 overs to register an emphatic victory.
Assam’s dream run continued as they stunned Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai by 27 runs to enter the semifinals.
Chasing a paltry 179 for win, Mumbai, the last season’s runners-up, batting line-up crumbled in front of a disciplined Assam attack to be bowled out for 151 in 46.5 overs in the quarterfinal.
Brief scores: Assam: 178 all out in 47.4 overs (Sibsankar Roy 69, Gokul Sharma 51; Aavishkar Salvi 3-25, Rajesh Verma 3-32) bt Mumbai: 151 all out in 46.5 overs (Shoaib Shaikh 42, Ankeet Chavan 36; Abu Nechim Ahmed 3-31, Pritam Das 2-24).
Score board
KARNATAKA: KL Rahul c Chatterjee b Ahmed 4; Robin Uthappa c Saha b Pratap 8; Ganesh Satish c Saha b Pratap 6; Manish Pandey c Chatterjee b Pratap 28; CM Gautam c Saha b Shukla 0; Stuart Binny lbw Shukla 4; Karun Nair c Saha b Saxena 22; R Vinay Kumar b Sanyal 20; Abhimanyu Mithun b Ahmed 17; KP Appanna (not out) 9; HS Sharath lbw Ahmed 0; Extras (LB-3, W-6) 9; Total (all out; 32.1 overs) 127.
Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-13, 3-46, 4-51, 5-51, 6-57, 7-98, 8-98, 9-121.
Bowling: Shami Ahmed 8.1-1-32-3, Veer Pratap Singh 9-1-40-3, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 6-1-20-2, Iresh Saxena 5-0-19-1, Sanjib Sanyal 4-0-13-1.
BENGAL: Wriddhiman Saha (not out) 52; Sreevats Goswami (not out) 70; Extras (LB-1, W-4, NB-1) 6; Total (no loss; 28.3 overs) 128.
Bowling: R Vinay Kumar 7-0-21-0, Abhimanyu Mithun 6-1-16-0, HS Sharath 6-1-19-0, Stuart Binny 3-0-28-0, KP Appanna 4-0-21-0, Karun Nair 1-0-7-0, CM Gautam 1-0-6-0, KL Rahul 0.3-0- 9-0.
