Hazare Trophy: Sachin, Vishnu star in Kerala's win over Saurashtra

Delhi: Half-centuries by Sachin Baby and Vishnu Vinod steered Kerala to a 46-run victory over Saurashtra in the Vijay Hazare Trophy Elite Group B match at the Palam B Stadium, here on Monday.

Kerala, who were put into bat first, made a fine start with Vinod (62) and Jalaj Saxena (33) sharing a partnership of 79 for the opening wicket.

Sachin Baby (93), batting at No. 4, held the innings together in the middle overs, while the likes of Sanju Samson (30), Vasudevan Arundhadi Jagadeesh (41) and Arun Karthik (38 not out) all made decent contributions to push the total past the 300-run mark.

Jay Chauhan snared a three-wicket haul for Saurashtra. In pursuit of a sizeable target, Saurashtra lost wickets at regular intervals as they found themselves in trouble at 99 for 5.

Samarth Vyas (91) and Chirag Jani (66) tried to keep their side in the hunt. Vyas also put on a partnership of 77 for the final wicket with Yuvraj Chudasama, but by then, the result of the match was more or less a foregone conclusion.

For Kerala, Basil Thampi bagged four wickets.

With this win, Kerala now have 18 points while Saurashtra could eke out just 12 from eight games.

Delhi topped Group B with 26 points followed by Andhra who had an inferior net run-rate despite finishing with same number of points.

Delhi, Andhra and Hyderabad (22 points) have qualified for quarterfinals from Group B.

Brief scores: Kerala 316/7 in 50 overs (Sachin Baby 93, Vishnu Vinod 62; Jay Chauhan 3-63) beat Saurashtra 270 in 49.3 overs (Samarth Vyas 91; Basil Thampi 4-52) by 46 runs.