Delhi pay price for poor batting as Karnataka win by 4 wickets

A depleted Delhi, without the services of seasoned pros Shikhar Dhawan and Ishant Sharma, slumped to their second successive defeat, losing to Karnataka by four wickets in a low-scoring Group B match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Thursday.

Batting first at the JU (Salt Lake) ground, Delhi were bundled out for 159 in 45.4 overs on a sluggish surface. Seamer Vasuki Koushik took 3 for 23 in 10 overs while leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal polished off the tail, finishing with figures of 3/25.

In reply, opener Ravikumar Samarth anchored the chase with 59 off 73 balls while veteran Manish Pandey chipped in with four sixes in his 37-ball-48 as Karnataka scored the runs inside 30 overs.

Delhi have now lost two out of their last four games having come out second best against Rajasthan in the previous game.

While Dhawan, who warmed up nicely for the New Zealand away ODI series with scores of 47 and 54 in the first two games, had to leave for national duty, Ishant was rested as a part of workload management. Ishant is not playing back-to-back games as his body won't able to recover from rigours of 50-over games with a gap of a day.

The pitch at the JU (Salt Lake Ground) for past two decades has been traditionally low and slow and the Delhi batters did struggle with IPL specialists Nitish Rana (30 off 43 balls) and Lalit Yadav (59 off 100 balls) making some contributions, which was never going to be enough.

At one point, Delhi were reduced to 66 for 6 and were in danger of being bowled out for less than 100. But Lalit and Lakshay Thareja (15) added 44 runs for the seventh wicket to give the total some semblance of respectability.

Brief Scores Delhi 159 in 45.4 overs (Lalit Yadav 59, Nitish Rana 30, Vasuki Koushik 3/23, S Gopal 3/25). Karnataka 161/6 in 29.4 overs (Ravikumar Samarth 59, Manish Pandey 48, Mayank Yadav 4/47). Karnataka won by 4 wkts.

Rajasthan 270 in 49 overs (Yash Kothari 139, Rahul Shukla 5/53) Jharkhand 271/5 in 49 overs (Utkarsh Singh 91, Saurabh Tiwary 76). Jharkhand won by 5 wkts.

Assam 307/8 (Riyan Parag 128, Sumit Singh 2/64) Sikkim 127 in 36 overs (Sunil Lachit 3/33). Assam won by 180 runs.

Meghalaya 111 in 40 overs (Rajesh Bishnoi 53, Nachiket Bute 4/21) Vidarbha 113/1 in 27.1 overs (Aditya Sarwate 48). Vidarbha won by 9 wickets.

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