Karnataka leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal bagged a five-wicket haul to help the defending champions pack Kerala for 49 runs and register a nine-wicket win in their Group B Vijay Hazare cricket match, here today.
Electing to bat at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, the Kerala batting line-up fell like a pack of cards in 22 overs against a disciplined Karnataka bowling attack.
Pace spearhead and captain R Vinay Kumar started the opposition fall by bagging a couple of wickets as left-arm bowler Sreenath Aravind also picked two scalps.
But Gopal soon took over to rattle the middle and the lower-order in no time.
Opener Nikhilesh Surendran (11) and skipper Sachin Baby (12) were the only two batsmen to get into double figures as the innings saw four ducks in all.
Coming into bat, Karnataka top-order wasted little time in chasing down the score in 5.5 overs. Mayank Agarwal (5) was out early, but Lokesh Rahul (19) and Karun Nair (24) made sure that there were no hiccups in the remaining chase.
Karnataka have registered three wins in five matches.
Brief Scores:
Kerala 49 all out in 22 overs (Nikhilesh Surendran 11, Sachin Baby 12; Chreyas Goapl 5-19)
Karnataka 51/1 in 5.5 overs (Lokesh Rahul 19 not out, Karun Nair 24 not out; Unnikrishnan Manukrishnan 1-27).
