Arun Karthik

After engaging in talks with at least half-a-dozen players over the last two months, KCA has finally settled on former Tamil Nadu batsman Arun Karthik as their second guest player.

Karthik concedes that it has been an extremely difficult phase with his time at Assam during the Ranji Trophy last season being a particularly low point.

Arun Karthik made an unbeaten 86 as Puducherry thrashed Arunachal Pradesh by nine wickets on Thursday to dominate the Plate Group standings of the Vijay Hazare Trophy domestic one-day cricket tournament.

Pondicherry was in commanding position at the end of Day 1 of their Ranji Trophy Plate Group clash against Mizoram on Wednesday.

Veteran Yuvraj Singh looked completely out of sorts as he failed to trouble the scorers with minnows Assam beating Punjab by 3 wickets in a group A League encounter of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

KB Arun Karthik - one of most experienced players in the Tamil Nadu line-up - has had a lean run at the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament with 74 runs from the first six games. But the 34-year-old's unbeaten 89 helped Tamil Nadu beat Rajasthan by seven wickets to make their second successive final in the tournament.

A 20-year-old Rajasthani bowler achieved 11 wickets in one innings in a Ranji Trophy match against Puducherry. He also achieved an unbeaten 96 in the same match.

Rajasthan began the day on 147 for 5 and Das took four of the remaining five wickets as the visitors added only 39 runs to their overnight score.

Chennai based Grandmaster SP Sethuraman defeated M Kunal and moved in shared lead with 5.0 points after the fifth round of the Apollo Engineering College Commonwealth Chess Championships.

Sanju Samson continued his good form and struck a quickfire century as Kerala need another nine wickets on the final day of the play to register an outright win over Saurashtra in a Ranji Trophy Group B match.

In the Group D Ranji Trophy match at Barabati Stadium in Cuttack, Odisha took the first-innings lead against Puducherry. Puducherry skipper Arun Karthik scored a century, but Odisha bowlers dismissed the visitors for 284. Odisha reached 122/4 in their second innings, leading by 160 runs.

Legendary West Indies cricketer Alvin Kallicharan will be the mentor of the Puducherry team for the upcoming domestic season while out-of-favour India bowler R Vinay Kumar will be part of the squad as a guest player.

The Super Kings Academy, established by Chennai Super Kings, will start functioning here from April 6.The academy aims to produce cricketers from small towns and get them to play in state and national teams, cricketer Arun Karthik told reporters here on Thursday.

India Cements skipper R Ashwin was smashed for 69 runs in 12 wicketless overs as his India teammate Piyush Chawla grabbed six wickets to guide Chemplast to a 79-run win.

KB Arun Karthick hasn't put a foot wrong in the ongoing third edition of Tamil Nadu Premier League.

Hosts Andhra and Karnataka continued to falter, while Hyderabad suffered their first defeat in the South Zone Twenty20 tournament for Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy on Thursday.

Madurai Super Giant's coach Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan looked at the positives after his team's two-run loss against Ruby Trichy Warriors at the NPR College Ground on Wednesday in the India Cements Ltd TNPL.

Puducherry once again put up a dominating show to rout Sikkim by 10 wickets to maintain their slender lead atop the Plate Group standings in the Vijay Hazare Trophy domestic one-day cricket cricket tournament here on Tuesday.