Kerala hands ten wicket hiding to Karnataka
Kerala beat Karnataka comfortably by ten wickets in their Ranji Trophy South Zone clash at the Nehru Stadium in Kochi to complete only a second victory against their northern neighbours in 46 encounters in the competition
Sankhya Krishnan
25-Nov-2000
Kerala beat Karnataka comfortably by ten wickets in their Ranji Trophy
South Zone clash at the Nehru Stadium in Kochi to complete only a second
victory against their northern neighbours in 46 encounters in the
competition. Set a princely target of five runs in the fourth innings,
Kerala's win came in slightly bizarre fashion. Vijay Bharadwaj bowled a
no-ball, which went for four byes, to finish with the unusual figures of
0.0-0-1-0.
Earlier Karnataka, resuming at 31/4, folded up for 133. Overnight batsmen,
Bharadwaj (32) and AR Mahesh (31) waged a grim battle in the first session
but both were out in successive overs at the stroke of lunch to leave the
visitors at 93/6. Little resistance was offered by the tail with the
exception of Dodda Ganesh who hung around for an hour and a quarter to
produce 22. The curtain came down when skipper Venkatesh Prasad knocked off
spinner Ramprakash into Tinu Yohannan at cover, Karnataka labouring for
79.2 overs to make 133. Left arm spinner Sreekumar Nair and leg spinner M
Suresh Kumar finished with three wickets apiece.
Kerala's only other victory over Karnataka - by six wickets - came at the
Government Victoria College Ground, Palakkad on 28-31 December 1996.
CricInfo's zealous scorer, Sudhir Aly also informs us that umpire Sanjeeva Rao
officiated in both Kerala triumphs. The result queers the pitch in the zonal
standings, lifting Kerala to 18 points from four games, ahead of
Karnataka's 16.