Vijay Hazare Trophy: Bawne shines as Maha beat Karnataka

Ankit Bawne scored an unbeaten ton to help Maharashtra defeat Karnataka by 57 runs by the VJD method in the rain-hit Vijay Hazare Trophy Elite Group A game here on Thursday.

This was Maharashtra's second successive victory after their win over Goa Wednesday by five wickets.

Put in to bat by Karnataka, Bawne took the opposition bowlers to task en route to 104 not out in 115 balls.

He found an able partner in Maharashtra skipper Rahul Tripathi, who chipped in with a valuable 70-run innings.

Their knocks ensured that Maharashtra posted 245/8 on the board in their fifty overs.

Bawne struck 10 fours and a six, while Tripathi hit seven fours and two other hits over the fence.

Except these two, no other Maharashtra batsman made a decent contribution.

For Karnataka, R Vinay Kumar, M Prasidh Krishna, Abhimanyu Mithun and K Gowtham scalped two wickets each.

Karnataka's target was reset to 165, but they managed to post only 107/6 in 22.4 overs with rain intervention.

From the beginning Maharashtra bowlers struck at regular intervals and never allowed Karnataka batters to settle down.

Seasoned pacer Samad Fallah removed the in-form Mayank Agarwal (12), while Karun Nair (4) too fell cheaply.

Pawan Deshpande (31) and C Gautam (29) tried to put up a fight, but once they departed, Karnataka were out of sorts.

The two other Elite Group A matches --- Vidarbha versus Baroda and Railways versus Himachal Pradesh -- also had to decided by the VJD method with rain interruption.

While Baroda won against Vidarbha by 37 runs, Himachal Pradesh defeated Railways by 33 runs.

Summarised Scores: At Bengaluru: Maharashtra 245/8 in 50 overs (Ankit Bawane 104 not out, Rahul Tripathi 70, Abhimanyu Mithun 2-30) beat Karnataka 107/6 in 22.4 overs (Pavan Desphande 31, C Gautam 29, Satyajeet Bachhav 2-19) by 57 runs via VJD method.

Vidarbha 254 all out (Atharva Taide 57, Faiz Fazal 56, Lukman Meriwala 3-54) lost to Baroda 151/2 in 29 overs (Aditya Waghmode 50, Kedar Devdhar 46, Akshay Karnewar 1-27) by 37 runs via VJD method.

Railways 187 all out in 47.5 overs (Karan Sharma 33, Harsh Tyagi 29, Mayank Dagar 4-38) lost to Himachal Pradesh 170/5 (Prashant Chopra 77, Anureet Sigh 2-26) by 33 runs via VJD method.