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Karthik ton helps Tamil Nadu clinch Vijay Hazare Trophy


Tamil Nadu clinched the Vijay Hazare Trophy with a comfortable win over Bengal in the final on Monday (March 20) at the Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi. Tamil Nadu, the tournament's most successful side, won their fifth title after Dinesh Karthik stepped up with the bat once again in the summit clash. His 120-ball 112 helped Tamil Nadu post 217 on the board and in reply, Bengal could manage only 180.
After winning the toss, skipper Vijay Shankar opted to bat as Tamil Nadu went in with an unchanged XI from their semifinal. Bengal on the other hand, were boosted by the return of India seamer Mohammed Shami who replaced Sayan Ghosh. Bengal made a terrific start to the game with Ashok Dinda and Shami making early inroads. Ganga Sridhar Raju, who made 85 in the quarterfinal, edged a short and wide delivery to the wicketkeeper for just 4. Although Kaushik Gandhi began in positive fashion striking Kanishk Seth for three boundaries, he inside-edged one back onto his stumps soon after.
Karthik made a blistering start to his innings by cracking Dinda for a couple of fours to kickstart his innings, but saw Baba Aparajith depart in the very next over. The batsman was given out LBW after getting rapped on the pads but Bengal had an element of luck in it with replays confirming that the ball would have missed the leg stump. As Karthik fetched two more fours to race to 18 off 11, Shankar edged one to the keeper. Tottering at 49 for 4, the onus was on Karthik to bat deep into the innings. The 31-year-old, who was already the leading run-getter in the tournament, took on the responsibility to rebuild the innings.
After five quiet overs, he broke the shackles with a flick past mid on for his fifth boundary. With Baba Indrajith struggling to get going at the other end, Karthik took on the mantle to increase the run rate. After getting a streaky boundary off Kanishk, Karthik stepped down the track to Pragyan Ojha to whip him towards deep mid-wicket in the following over. There was a sudden surge in the flow of boundaries from Karthik's bat as he first cut Ojha to backward point to bring up his half-century and then followed it up with back to back boundaries off Aamir Gani.
Indrajith finally hit a boundary in the 26th over but just when things were getting out of their control, Bengal struck courtesy a run out. Karthik hit one straight back at Indrajith hitting him on the arm, and as the batsman was recovering from the blow, Abhimanyu Easwaran seized the opportunity to run him out.
Karthik was then involved in another crucial partnership with Washington Sundar but the latter was also run out due to a bad judgement on his part. With Bengal looking to have a crack at Tamil Nadu's tail, Karthik changed gears again and brought up his second century of the tournament with a boundary off a reverse sweep. During the course of his innings, he also became the first batsman ever to breach the 600-run mark in a single edition in the tournament's history. Shami came back to clean up the tail and finished with a four-wicket haul as Tamil Nadu were bowled out for 217.

Shami and Ojha chanced their hand and struck a six each but failed to last long enough to cause jitters in the opposition camp. Tamil Nadu kept chipping away in the end to win by 37 runs.
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 217 in 47.2 overs (Dinesh Karthik 112, Baba Indrajith 32; Mohammed Shami 4-26, Ashok Dinda 3-36) beat Bengal 180 in 45.5 overs (Sudip Chatterjee 58, Manoj Tiwary 32; Aswin Crist 2-23, M Mohammed 2-30) by 37 runs.

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