Tamil Nadu trounce Bengal for third straight win

Tamil Nadu continued their winning run as they thrashed Bengal by 146 runs in a Elite Group B match in the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament on Saturday.

Sent into bat, Tamil Nadu piled up 295 for 8 in 50 overs, riding on half-centuries from B Indrajith (64), Dinesh Karthik (87) and J Kousik (50) and then bowled out the opponents for 149 in 39.1 overs for their third consecutive victory.

From 22 for 2 and 55 for 3 in the 18th over, the Tamil Nadu batters went on the overdrive with the experienced Karthik leading the charge, first in the company of Indrajith and then Kousik. Indrajith and Karthik shared a 105-run stand for the fourth wicket before the veteran stumper-batter added 74 runs for the fifth wicket.

The last 13 overs yielded 135 runs as the Tamil Nadu batters went berserk, especially Kousik and Shahrukh Khan (32 off 12).

In reply, Bengal were never in the hunt and kept losing wickets at regular intervals with medium-pacer R Silambarasan picking up four wickets including that of opener Shreevats Goswami (1).

Meanwhile, Karnataka humbled Mumbai by seven wickets as R Samarth scored a superb 96*. Mumbai's star batter Suryakumar Yadav could not make much of an impression, falling for 8 to Pravin Dubey (4/29).