Ranji Trophy: Vinay Kumar bowls Karnataka to victory; Haryana beat Maharashtra

Vinay Kumar

New Delhi, December 17 (IANS)

Medium pacer R. Vinay Kumar's six for 34 helped Karnataka bowl out Bengal for 227 runs and win the match by nine wickets on the fourth day of a Ranji Trophy match at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Elsewhere, hosts Haryana rode on Mohit Sharma's five-wicket haul to beat Maharashtra by 53 runs in Rohtak on Wednesday.

Bengal, with the overnight score of 46 for one, struggled against the pace trio of Sreenath Aravind, Abhimanyu Mithun and Vinay in the morning session of the final day.

Arindam Das and Sudip Chatterjee fought hard for a second-wicket partnership of 68 runs before the former lost his wicket to Mithun, Spinner Shreyas Goapal rattled Sudip's stumps. Afterwards, skipper Vinay ran through the middle and lowe-order batting line-up.

Requiring 71 runs to win the match, the defending champions rode on Robin Uthappa's quickfire 54 to register their second straight win of the tournament.

At the Chaudhary Bansi Lal Stadium, Lahli, Maharashtra failed to chase the 207-run target set by Haryana as medium fast bowlers Mohit and Ashish Hooda shared nine wickets between them. Rahul Tripathi (39) and Kedar Jadhav (29) offered some resistance but that was not enough.

At the Holkar Stadium in Indore, Uttar Praesh chased down 180-run target set by Mashya Pradesh with four wickets to spare. the match was more or less decided Tuesday by medium pacer Amit Mishra's six-wicket haul as the hosts were bowled out for a paltry score of 63.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh defeated Kerala by seven wickets. Openers Srikar Bharat (62) and Prasanth Kumar shared 95 runs partnership to put Andhra in a strong position in pursuit of 218.

Brief Scores:

At Kolkata, Bengal vs Karnataka: Karnataka 408 and 71/1 (Robin Uthappa 54; Shib Sankar paul 1/33) beat Bengal 251 and 227 (Sudip Chatterjee 59; Vinay Kumar 6/34) by nine wickets.

At Vizianagaram, Andhra vs Kerala: Kerala 229 and 129 (K.B. Pawan 34; P Vijaykumar 5/35) lost to Andhra 141 and 221/3 (Prasanth Kumar 75; U Maukrishnan 2/31) by seven wickets.

At Guwahati, Assam vs Jharkhand: Assam 191 and 235/9 decl (Pallav Kumar Das 78; Ajay Yadav 4/29), drew with Jharkhand 217 and 78/4 (Saurabh Tiwary 28; Krishna Das 3/17).

At Rohtak, Haryana vs Maharastra: Haryana 136 and 176 (Kuldeep Rana 39, Anupam Sanklecha 3/63), beat Maharastra 105 and 154 (Rahul Tripathi 39, Mohit Sharma 5/45) by 53 runs.

At Hyderabad, Hyderabad vs Goa: Hyderabad 568/7 decl drew with Goa 269 and 181/2 (A.S Desai 100; Pragyan Ojha 1/34).

At Indore, Madhya Pradesh vs Uttar Pradesh: Madhya Pradesh 296 and 63 (Harpreet Singh 37; Amit Mishra 6/26) lost to Uttar Pradesh 180 and 183/6 (Parvinder Singh 41; AVish Khan 4/84) by four wickets.

At Cuttack, Odisha vs Gujarat: Odisha 1st innings 225 and 248 (Abhilash Mallick 126, Govinda Podder 57; Rush Kalaria 6/45) lost to Gujarat 372 and 105/2 (Bhargav Merai 43; Suryakant Pradhan 1/12) by eight wickets.

At Delhi, Railways vs Mumbai: Railways 1st innings 242 and 136/4 (Abhishek Kaushik 41, Arindam Ghosh 38; Suryakumar Yadav 2/10) drew with Mumbai 101 (Javed Khan not out 27; Anureet Singh 4/35, Ranjitkumar Mali 3/27).

At Jaipur, Rajasthan vs Saurashtra: Rajasthan 437/5 drew with Saurashtra 1st innings 269 (Arpit Vasavada 85; Pankaj Singh 4/60, Deepak Chahar 3/90) and 117 (sheldon Jackson not out 71; Pankaj singh 1/9).

At Delhi, Tripura vs Services: Tripura 1st innings 430 drew with Services first innings 368/2 (Rajat Paliwal not out 139, Yashpal not out Singh 109; Abhijit Dey 1/21).

At Nagpur, Vidarbha vs Punjab: Punjab 195 and 255 (Gitansh Khera 100; Shrikant Wagh 3/71) drew with Vidarbha 158 and 143/3 (S. Badrinath not out 49; Amitoze Singh 1/11).