Former champions Baroda got off to a good start in the Ranji Trophy Elite Group 'A' league as they crushed Karnataka by seven wickets with a day to spare at the Motibaug Palace ground in Baroda on Saturday.

Chasing an easy target of 112 runs, after the visitors folded up their second innings for 283, Baroda secured victory with just 3.3 overs to spare on the penultimate day of the four-day match, losing three of their top-order batsmen --Rishikesh Parab (54), Connor Williams (21) and Ajit Bhoite (15) in the process.

Last year's semi-finalists, who picked up four points from this match, will take on Surashtra in their next match, to be played at Rajkot from December 1.

Resuming at the overnight score of 180 for four, Karnataka, which had conceded a huge 172-run first innings lead to their opponents, got a severe blow when Deepak Choughule (61, 9x4) made his exit in the fifth over after putting on 96 valuable runs with V S Thilak Naudi (57, 10x4) for the fifth wicket.

B Akhil and Sunil Joshi contributed 26 and 27 runs respectively before Baroda's most successful medium pacer Rakesh Patel and leggie Rajesh Pawar brought an end to their innings at 283, barely 15 minutes after lunch having claimed four wickets each.

The 30-year-old Patel, who ripped through the Karnataka batting line-up with a five-wicket haul to shoot out the visitors for a paltry 85 in their first innings, returned impressive match figures of 9 wickets for 106 runs.

Set to score only 112 for an outright victory, Baroda showed no nerves, reaching 115 for three wickets, for a facile win.

New Karnataka coach Venkatesh Prasad, who was expecting his side to recover even after its dismal performance with the bat in the first innings, attributed the humiliating defeat to lack of application of mind by the batsmen, on a ''fantastic'' batting wicket.

Scorecard:

Karnataka (1st innings): 85
Baroda (1st innings): 257

Karnataka (2nd innings): (overnight 180 for 4)
Robin Uthappa c I Pathan Sr b R Pawar 34
Roland Barrington c wk P Shah b R Pawar 3
Bharat Chipli b R Pawar 32
C Raghu c wk P Shah b R Patel 17
Deepak Chougule lbw I Pathan Sr 61
V S Thilak Naidi run out 57
B Akhil lbw R Pawar 26
Sunil Joshi not out 27
R Vinay Kumar c K Panchal b R Patel 6
N C Aiyappa c wk P Shah b R Patel 0
K P Appanna c wk P Shah b R Patel 2
Extras: (b 6, lb 5, nb 5, w 2) 18
Total: (all out in 90 overs ) 283

Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-47, 3-90, 4-96, 5-192, 6-234, 7-248, 8-274, 9-274, 10-283.]

Bowling: Rakesh Patel 22-1-71-4, Irfan Pathan [Images] Sr 22-4-64-1, Rajesh Pawar 28-7-83-4, Yusuf Pathan 17-1-49-0, Ajit Bhoite 1-0-5-0.

Baroda (2nd innings):
Rishikesh Parab b V Kumar 54
Connor Williams c R Uthappa b S Joshi 21
Ajit Bhoite c D Chougule b C Raghu 15
Jacob Martin not out 12
Kiran Powar not out 8
Extras: ( b 1, lb 3, nb 1) 5
Total: (for 3 wickets in 46.3 overs) 115

Fow: 1-45, 2-78, 3-107

Bowling: R Vinay Kumar 8.3-4-15-1, N C Aiyappa 8-2-17-0, Sunil Joshi 14-3-31-1, B Akhil 3-2-4-0, K P Appanna 10-4-33-0, C Raghu 3-0-11-1.