Vadodara crush Karnataka by 7 wickets on day 3

Vadodara, Nov 25 (UNI) Former champions Vadodara got off to a good start in the Ranji trophy Elite group ''A'' league as they crushed Karnataka by seven wickets with a day to spare at the Motibaug Palace ground here today.

Chasing an easy target of 112 runs after the visitors folded up their second innings at 283, Vadodara notched up the convicting victory with just 3.3 overs to spare on the penultimate day of the four-day match losing three of their top-order batsmen--Rishikesh Parab (54), Connor Williams (21) and Ajit Bhoite (15) in the process.

The last year's semifinalists, who picked up four points from this tie, will take on Surashtra in their next match to be played at Rajkot from December 1.

Resuming at the overnight score of 180 for four, Karnataka which had conceded a huge 172-run first innings lead to their opponents, got a severe blow when Deepak Choughule (61, 9x4) made his exit in the very fifth over after putting on 96 valuable runs with V S Thilak Naudi (57, 10x4) for the fifth wicket.

B Akhil and Sunil Joshi contributed 26 and 27 runs respectively before Vadodara's most successful medium pacer Rakesh Patel and leggie Rajesh Pawar brought an end to their innings at 283 barely 15 minutes after lunch having claimed 4 wickets each.

30-year-old Patel, who ripped through the Karnataka batting line-up with a five-wicket haul to shot out the visitors for a paltry 85 in their first innings, returned an impressive match figure of 9 wickets for 106 runs.

Set to score only 112 for an outright victory, Vadodara showed no nerves to reach 115 for three wickets for registering a facile win.

New Karnataka coach Venkatesh Prasad, who was expecting his side to make a recovery even after its dismal performance with the bat in the first innings, attributed the humiliating defeat to lack of application of mind by the batmen on a ''fantastic'' batting wicket.

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