Vijay Hazare Trophy: Uthappa, Vinod hit tons in 3rd Kerala win

Bengaluru, Feb 24 (SocialNews.XYZ) In glorious form, Robin Uthappa scored his second century in three Vijay Hazare Trophy matches as the opener hammered 100 off 104 balls on Wednesday to help his adopted Kerala team to a seven-run win against the Railways in a Elite Group C encounter.

Uthappa scored 107 against Odisha and then 81 against Uttar Pradesh, both in Alur, Karnataka, and on Wednesday he helped Kerala to 351 for six wickets in 50 overs at the Just Cricket Academy Ground. Vishnu Vinod gave admirable company to Uthappa (8x4s, 5x6s) as he also scored a century (107, 107 balls, 5x4s, 4x6s) and both were involved in a 193-run partnership for the opening wicket.

At No.3, Sanju Samson slammed a 29-ball 61 and down the order Vathsal Govind scored an unbeaten 46 (34 balls, 2x4s, 3x6s). For the Railways, Pradeep T. and captain Karn Sharma bagged two wickets apiece.

In reply, the Railways put up a tough fight with four of their batsmen scoring half-centuries. Opener Mrunal Devdhar made 79 off 80 balls (9x4s), Arindam Ghosh (62-ball 64), Harsh Tyagi (58 off 32), and Saurabh Singh (50 off 52) reached half-centuries, but the Railways as a unit failed to cross the line.

All five Kerala bowlers captured wickets, with M.D. Nidheesh being the most successful with three wickets while Sree Santh, captain Sachin Baby, and N.P. Basil bagged two apiece.

With this win, Kerala climbed to the top of the Group C points table.

Brief scores:

Elite C

Kerala351/6 in 50 overs (Vishnu Vinod 107, Robin Uthappa 100, Sanju Samson 61; T Pradeep 2-50) beat Railways 344 in 49.4 overs (Mrunal Devdhar 79, Arindam Ghosh 64; MD Nidheesh 3-83) by 7 runs.

Bihar 193 all out in 46.1 overs (Yashasvi Rishav 67, Babul Kumar 38; Shivam Sharma 7/31) lost to Uttar Pradesh 194/5 in 28 overs (Priyam Garg 57, Akshdeep Nath 54; Ashutosh Aman 2/44) by five wickets with 132 balls remaining

Karnataka 329/5 in 50 overs (Devdutt Padikkal 152, Ravikumar Samarth 60; Suryakant Pradhan 2/53) beat Odisha 228 all out in 44 overs (Subhranshu Senapati 78, Ankit Yadav 56; Prasidh Krishna 3/46) by 101 runs

Elite A

Baroda 316/7 in 50 overs (Kedar Devdhar 131, Krunal Pandya 55; Ajay Dev Goud 2/68) beat Hyderabad 206 all out in 42.2 overs (Tilak Varma 47, Tanmay Agarwal 34; Babashafi Pathan 3/37) by 110 runs

Gujarat 336/7 in 50 overs (Het Patel 114, Dhruv Raval 83; Rana Dutta 5/74) beat Tripura 204 all out (Udiyan Bose 65, Bishal Ghosh 28; Hardik Patel 3/25) by 132 runs

Goa 210 all out in 49.2 overs (Darshan Misal 56, Amit Verma 46; Veer Pratap Singh 4/29) lost to Chattisgarh 213/2 in 36.5 overs (Rishabh Tiwari 91 not out, Harpreet Singh 56) by eight wickets with 79 balls remaining

Elite B

Vidarbha 288/9 in 50 overs (Sanjay Raghunath 82, Akshay Wadkar 76; Vikash Singh 4/65) vs Jharkhand 294/7 in 49.3 overs (Kumar Deobrat 100, Utkarsh Singh 49; Shubham Dubey 3/59)

Madhya Pradesh 225 all out in 48.2 overs (Parth Sahani 46, Aditya Shrivastava 46; M Mohammed 3/39) beat Tamil Nadu 211 all out (Shahrukh Khan 67 not out, Dinesh Karthik 37; Mihir Hirwani 2/42) by 14 runs

Andhra 175 all out in 48.1 overs (Nitish Kumar Reddy 30, Karan Shinde 27; Siddharth Kaul 4/27) lost to Punjab 176/3 (Mandeep Singh 64 not out, Abhishek Sharma 32; Shoaib Md Khan 2/38) by seven wickets with 84 balls remaining

Source: IANS