JOIN USKarnataka champions
A four-wicket haul by S Arvind and cameos by R Vinay Kumar and Pavan Deshpande set up Karnataka’s six-wicket win over Goa, helping them top the South Zone leg of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament here at the MA Chidambaram stadium on Friday.
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu had identical number of wins at four each but the Vinay-led side emerged champions based on their superior net run rate (see table).
Karnataka lost the in-form opener Mayank Agarwal early in their chase of 121 but managed to coast 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 consecutive wins 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. 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. Arvind aside, J Suchith, Deshpande and K Gowtham picked up one wicket apiece for Karnataka.
In the tournament’s final match, Baba Aparajith's unbeaten 51 steered Tamil Nadu home in against Kerala, but it wasn't enough to top the table. 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. To over take Karnataka in NRR, the hosts needed to chase the target in under eight overs.
Brief scores: Goa: 120/7 in 20 overs (Swapnil Asnodkar 34; S Arvind 4-29) lt to Karnataka: 121/4 in 11.4 overs (Vinay Kumar 34, Pavan Deshpande 32 n.o.; Amulaya Pandrekar 2-30). Karnataka: 4 points; Goa: 0 point.
Kerala: 128/6 in 20 overs (Sachin Baby 53 n.o.; R Sathish 2-16, Aswin Crist 3-19) lt to Tamil Nadu: 129/5 in 18.4 overs (Baba Aparajith 51 n.o.; Sandeep Warrier 2-18). TN: 4; Kerala: 0.
Andhra: 140 all out in 19.2 overs (Hanuma Vihari 49; M Ravi Kiran 2-27, Mohammed Siraj 4-24) bt Hyderabad: 129 all out in 20 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 49, Akash Bhandari 26; Girinath Reddy 3-19, Swaroop Kumar 5-19). Andhra: 4; Hyderabad: 0.