R Vinay Kumar held firm from one end as his 35-run knock helped Karnataka to defeat Hyderabad in a low-scoring thriller and maintain their winning run in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Chasing a paltry 108 run target, Karnataka began poorly as they were reduced to 9 for 2 in the fifth over. A 30-run partnership between Mayank Agarwal (26) and K Gowtham calmed down the nerves but the floodgates opened after the latter was sent back by Chama Milind. The left-arm medium pacer dismissed Karnataka skipper Manish Pandey on the very next ball to pile more misery on the batting team. The next two batsmen- Anirudha Joshi and Pavan Deshpande- also failed to open their account as Karnataka were reduced to 46 for 6. They kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and were reeling at 81 for 9 but the experienced Vinay Kumar held firm from one end and took his team over the line in the 30th over.
Earlier, K Gowtham, who was bought by Mumbai Indians for a whopping Rs 2 crore in this year’s IPL auction, shone with the ball and took 5 for 28 to help his team dismiss Hyderabad for 108. S Badrinath (18) and Akash Bhandari (17) were the only two batsmen to cross the double-digit mark as Hyderabad suffered their first defeat of the tournament.
Brief scores:
Karnataka 109/9 (Vinay Kumar 35*, Mayank Agarwal 26, Mohammed Siraj 3-24) beat Hyderabad 108/10 ( S Badrinath 18, K Gowtham 5-28) by 1 wicket.