Devdutt Padikkal
Young opener Devdutt Padikkal continued his sensational form, smashing a second successive century to lead defending champions Karnataka to a nine-wicket win over Kerala in the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Friday.
Chasing Kerala's 278, Karnataka cantered home with 27 balls to spare with the Royal Challengers Bangalore opener hitting 13 fours and two sixes in an unbeaten knock of 126 from 138 balls.
He got a fine support from Krishnamurthy Siddharth (84-ball 86 not out; 5x4, 3x6) as they toyed with the Kerala attack in their match-winning 180-run undefeated stand.
Fresh from his 152 against Odisha, Padikkal carried on from where he left and put on a 99-run opening stand with skipper Ravikumar Samarth (62).
The 20-year-old, who also has two half-centuries, now leads the Vijay Hazare run chart with 427 runs from four matches at an astounding average of 142.33. The big win took Karnataka to the top of the Group E table ahead of Uttar Pradesh and Kerala on net run-rate.
Earlier, Abhimanyu Mithun (5/52) and Prasidh Krishna (2/65) shared seven wickets to restrict Kerala to 277 for eight after Karnataka opted to bowl at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here.
Brief Scores:
At M Chinnaswamy Stadium: Kerala 277/8; 50 overs (Vathsal Govind 95, Mohammed Azharuddeen 59 not out, Sachin Baby 54; Abhimanyu Mithun 5/52) lost to Karnataka 279/1; 45.3 overs (Devdutt Padikkal 126 not out, Krishnamurthy Siddharth 86 not out, Ravikumar Samarth 62) by nine wickets.
At KSCA Cricket (3) Ground, Alur: Uttar Pradesh 346/6; 50 overs (Priyam Garg 115, Akshdeep Nath 93; Ananta Saha 3/66) beat Railways 276; 46.1 overs (Shivam Chaudhary 107, Saurabh Singh 51; Shivam Mavi 4/51, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/49) by 70 runs.
At KSCA Cricket (2) Ground, Alur: Bihar 255/7; 50 overs (Babul Kumar 78, Sakibul Gani 48; Shantanu Mishra 3/46) lost to Odisha 258/3; 48.1 overs (Shantanu Mishra 76, Sandeep Pattnaik 64, Kartik Biswal 53 not out, Ankit Yadav 43 not out) by seven wickets.
