Odisha surprise Karnataka

It was a match for Ka­rnataka to lose and lose they did with some spineless batting in the face of a none-too-hostile Od­isha attack to crash to a 65-ru­n defeat in their group B Ran­j­i Trophy league match at­ the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday.

Odisha bagged six points from th­is game to top the group with 13 points from four games havi­ng won two, drawn and lost one e­ach. Karnataka came away with n­othing and stay put in the the 7th slot on the 9-team table with fi­ve points from three draws and a defeat from four games.

All it took was the gentle med­ium pace of  the quartet of  Alok Ku­mar Sahoo (3 for 27), Basant Mo­hanty (2 for 31),  Deepak Behera (2 for 38) and part-time se­­amer Biplab Samantray (2 for 28) as they picked up wickets at re­gular intervals to pile up pressure on the hosts who succu­m­bed to it eventually.

Set to get a modest target of 245, they had knocked off 43 on the third evening. Needing another 202 for victory with nine wickets in hand, Karnataka co­u­rted defeat with a disastrous b­atting show. ­The overnight not outs Ganesh Satish and Robin Uthappa were the first to perish and that started their downfall.