Mumbai: Deepak Chougule displayed his resources, hitting bold and innovative shots, to bring victory for Karnataka with three balls to spare against Gujarat in the BCCI's inaugural Twenty20 cricket championship at the Wankhede Stadium here on Tuesday.

Chougule pulled his weight with a 36-ball 41 with five hits to the fence.

In pursuit of 152 to record its first win, Karnataka seemed set to slump further from 38 for four with Rahul Dravid making only one off eight balls.

But Chougule and B. Akhil caused the initial turnaround raising 51 off 34 balls after which Vinay Kumar and Sunil Joshi struck some strong blows including a few over the line. Karnataka required five of the last over and fittingly, Chougule punched left-arm seamer Ashraf Makda over the packed off-side field.

Earlier, Gujarat faltered after the first and third wicket pairs produced 55 and 53 runs respectively. Parthiv Patel smashed five fours to make an 18-ball 26, while Azhar Bilakhia made a 47-ball 62 with half a dozen fours and a six.

The scores: Gujarat: 151 for nine in 20 overs (Azhar Bilakhia 62, Parthiv Patel 26, R. Vinay Kumar three for 31, S. Arvind two for 25, B. Akhil two for 24) lost to Karnataka 154 for six in 19.3 overs (Deepak Chougule 41 not out, B. Akhil 35, Hitesh Majmudar two for 21, Vishvajit Solanki two for 31).

Monday's match: Karnataka 142 for seven in 20 overs (B. Akhil 33, Devraj Patil 31, C. Raghu 32, L. Abhilish two for 23) lost to Punjab 146 for three in 19.5 overs (R. Ricky 76 not out, Yuvraj Singh 25, Dinesh Mongia 35).

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