Uthappa stars in Karnataka’s 104-run win with a cracking ton against Kerala in Subbaiah Pillai Trophy.
The result was never in question and it was always about whether Karnataka’s batsmen can bounce back after couple of middling performances. Robin Uthappa settled that query with a fine hundred, making sure he never got ahead of himself at any stage, and Karun Nair fired some ammo in the end to push the score to 317
This prooved to be way beyond Kerala’s reach as Vinay Kumar grabbed another five for – 5 for 34, his best List A performance. Karnataka’s bowling yet again utterly depended on their captain.
Prem, stands out for Kerala Yet, Kerala had something to cheer about in the chase – a pleasing ton from the No. 3 batsman Rohan Prem who ensured the chase didn’t fold up quickly. Prem, a left-handed batsman, punched the seamers, drove and cut the spinners and was pretty busy between the wickets.
He rarely dawdled out there, looking for runs from the go. He drove S Aravind, who replaced Ronit More, to the straight boundary twice, and once to the square-leg boundary.
Pity about his team-mates, though. The teenager Sanju Samson struck a fabulous six- a flowing on-the-up hit over long-on off the seamer HL Sharath – but fell soon, chipping the leggie Amit Verma to long-off. Nearly everyone at the top order got a start but no one really carried on.
The second highest score was just 32 from Robert Fernandes and the chase was never really going anywhere. It was all about whether Prem can get his hundred and he did, bringing it up in the 37th over, with a fluent square drive off Aravind.
There wasn’t much sting in Kerala’s bowling as well. And so, Uthappa moved along without much fuss. He sent the new ball in the ‘V’ and once he realised there wasn’t much venom in the track or in the bowling, he opened up.
There was a slog swept six off the mediumpacer V Jagadeesh, a pulled six off the left-arm seamer Prasanth Parameshwaran and the fours never went dry. He late cut, swept and even pulled out the reverse sweep to bring up his hundred before he fell, giving a return catch to the offie Vinoop Manoharan.
It was a hot sultry day at Alur, some one hour’s drive away from the city of Bangalore.
It’s set of three grounds owned by the state association with temporary structures acting as dressing rooms. There were some 20-odd people who had turned up and Karnataka’s Nair provided some entertainment after the fall of Uthappa.
The Karnataka dressing room enjoyed it even more, in fact. “Well played Kulla (shorty) was the cry of joy everytime Nair banged a boundary. He swung Parameshwaran for a six over long-on before turning on the heat against the seamer Sandeep Warrier. He looted 21 runs in a over, carting two successive sixes – one flew over square-leg and the other over midwicket- and following it up with a four.
By the time he fell (60 from 30 balls), he had added 96 runs in 61 deliveries with Manish Pandey and pushed the total way beyond Kerala’s reach. Brief scores: Karnataka 317 for (Uthappa 104 ) beat Kerala 213 (Prem 103) by 104 runs Goa 268 for 6 (Kamath 65, Gadekar 61) lost to Andhra 272 for 6 in 48.4 overs (Ricky Bhui 103* in 79 balls, Dara Benjamin 90, Dasari 27*) by 4 wickets. Tamil Nadu 280 for 4 (B Aparajith 91,M Vijay 90) beat Hyderabad 155 for 9 (L Balaji 3 – 27) .
www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Sports> Cricket / Bangalore Mirror Bureau / March 03rd, 2014
