VIDARBHA all-rounder Akshay Karnewar’s maiden List A hundred and his association with Darshan Nalkande saved the ignominy of a huge defeat as the duo reduced margin of the loss against a strong Karnataka side in their second round match of Vijay Hazare Trophy at CCFC Ground in Kolkata, on Sunday.

Chasing Karnataka’s huge score of 314-7, Vidarbha were stuttering at 6-36 and then 7-51 when Karnewar (104*; 131b, 14x4, 1x6) and Nalkande (57; 66b, 5x4, 2x6) joined hands in the middle. They added 140 runs for the eighth wicket as the team finally reached 248-9 going down by 66 runs. The margin of defeat would have been massive but for that ton and the partnership.

This was Vidarbha’s second loss in as many as days in their Elite Group B. On Saturday, they lost to Delhi by five wickets. They have a day’s break before taking on Sikkim in the third match to be played on Tuesday.

Vidarbha won the toss and invited Karnataka to take first strike. Lalit Yadav gave the team an early break when he had skipper Mayank Agarwal caught by Ganesh Satish for run-a-ball nine. Seamer Nalkande removed the other opener Ravikumar Samarth for 35-ball 19. But later batsmen, in that order, Nikin Jose (96; 121b, 7x4, 1x6), Manish Pandey (44; 39b, 5x4, 2x6), Shreyas Gopal (56; 43b, 4x4, 3x6) and later Krishnappa Gowtham (30*; 18b, 2x4, 2x6) batted well to ensure a good total on the board. For Vidarbha, Nalkande and Karnewar took three and two wickets respectively while Aditya Sarvate and Lalit picked one each.

With a mountain to climb, Vidarbha had very poor start. Five of the top seven could not score in double digits and but for that record eighth wicket partnership for Vidarbha, they would have fallen much behind in the net run rate just at the start of the tournament.

Karnataka’s new-ball pair of right-arm seamers Vasuki Koushik (4-27) and Vidhwath Kaverappa (3-40), playing just his second List A game, recorded their personal best bowling figures in the match. Vidarbha must pull their socks and score big wins in remaining games if they are looking at a knock-out berth.