Karnataka stormed into the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy for the fifth time, having last made it to the summit clash in the 2019-20 season. They defeated defending champions Haryana in the semifinal and now await the winner of the Vidarbha vs. Maharashtra clash. Devdutt Padikkal was the star with the bat for them in the tricky 238-run chase, but prior to that, it was Abhilash Shetty who impressed with the ball to restrict the opposition.
After winning the toss, Shetty got the better of opener Arsh Ranga vindicating his captain’s decision to bowl first. However, Himanshu Rana and skipper Ankit Kumar stitched a decent partnership and at 102/1 in the 21st over, things didn’t look great for the four-time champions. This is when veteran Shreyas Gopal pinned the Haryana captain in front of the stumps to trigger a collapse.
Haryana were soon reduced to 129/5 with Shetty snaring big wickets of Nishant Sindhu and Parth Vats in quick succession. The run-scoring dipped considerably since then and despite the 20s from Dinesh Bana, Rahul Tewatia,u Smit Kumar and Anuj Thakral, Haryana managed to post only 237 runs for the loss of nine wickets in their 50 overs. Apart from Shetty who finished with figures of 4/34, Gopal and Prasidh also did well picking up two wickets each.
The chase didn’t start on a great note for Karnataka as they lost their skipper Mayank Agarwal for a duck in the first over. However, his opening partner Devdutt Padikkal decided to dig deep and played a vital knock on an up-and-down surface in Vadodara. He got good support from Smaran Ravichandran as the duo added 128 runs for the third wicket without taking too many risks.
The partnership dampened the spirits of Haryana players and despite losing three wickets late in the innings, Karnataka comfortably got over the line in the 48th over of the innings with five wickets in hand. Padikkal scored 86 and Smaran also notched up his half-century before getting out on 76. Interestingly, Karnataka have won the tournament every time they’ve made it to the final of Vijay Hazare Trophy and it remains to be seen if they can win this time around to seal their fifth title.
