Seamer Deepak Chahar's five-wicket haul helped Rajasthan skittle out Karnataka for 138 and secure a 22-run victory in Kolkata. Electing to field, Karnataka restricted Rajasthan to 160 for 8, with captain Vinay Kumar (2 for 29) and S Aravind (3 for 25) doing bulk of the damage. Ankit Lamba, who scored 58 off 47 balls, and Aditya Garhwal (31 off 19 balls) were the major contributors.
With the ball, Abhimanyu Lamba struck first up to bowl Karun Nair in the first over. Chahar then bowled R Samarth and had Abhimanyu Mithun, promoted to No.4, caught behind off successive deliveries to leave Karnataka reeling at 19 for 3. Chahar continued to rip through the batting, sending back CM Gautam and Stuart Binny off consecutive deliveries in his next over. Chahar had to wait a little longer for his maiden five-for - he took the ninth wicket, of Vinay Kumar, to leave Karnataka in danger of falling short of 100.
Aniruddha Joshi, however, ensured that wouldn't happen, scoring an unbeaten 45-ball 73, including eight fours and three sixes. He put on 53 for the last wicket with Aravind. Joshi had made an unbeaten 40 off 19 balls against Punjab on Sunday.
Chahar, 25, has set his reserve price at INR 20 lakh ahead of the IPL auction and was part of the Rising Pune Supergiant franchise last year. He picked up seven wickets from five matches in the inter-state zonal round of the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament. His brother, the legspinner Rahul Chahar, played his first game of the tournament and finished with figures of 1 for 24 from four overs. Rahul, too, has set his base price at INR 20 lakh.