Ton-up Mandhana, Rawal help India sweep series

An avalanche of runs

- Shalini Gupta

came to terms with the deck's slow nature and variable bounce. It was Devdutt's seventh fifty in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. At the other end, Smaran too started cautiously but opened up once his fifty was reached. He hammered spinners Sindhu and Amit Rana for a six each to underline his growing comfort levels. Devdutt fell to Sindhu in his effort to close out the chase while Smaran was castled by the off-spinner. But by then Karnataka had reached 13 runs from sealing the victory.

Earlier, Karnataka bowlers led by left-arm pacer Abhilash Shetty (4/34) kept Haryana on the back foot in the company of leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal (2/36) and pacer Prasidh Krishna (2/40). Himanshu Rana (44) and skipper Ankit Kumar (48) added 70 runs for the second wicket but no one really built on the platform.

It required a 39-run alliance from 10th wicket pair Anuj Thakral and Amit Rana for Haryana to reach a respectable 237/9.