Vadodara, Jan 18 (IANS) Smaran Ravichandran’s century (101) alongside cameos by Krishnan Shrijith (78) and Abhinav Manohar (79) propelled Karnataka to win the 2024-25 Vijay Hazare Trophy, by 36 runs against Vidarbha, at the Kotambi Stadium on Saturday.
Vidarbha won the toss and opted to field first in the final and were able to get an early breakthrough when Devdutt Padikkal (8) nicked Yash Thakur’s delivery in the sixth over. Skipper Mayank Agarwal (32) and KV Aneesh (21) got the team through the opening phase of the game before the duo fell in quick succession.
Smaran alongside Shrijith went on to register a massive 160-run partnership for the fourth wicket to put Karnataka in control of the game.
Shrijith fell 22-run short of his century but Manohar’s late onslaught took the game even further away from Vidarbha’s reach.
The right handed all-rounder scored 79 runs off just 42 deliveries, at a strike rate of 188.09, in an innings laced with 10 boundaries and four sixes.
Karnataka ended the first innings at 348/6 giving Vidarbha a massive total to chase.
“That’s been the plan, just to take the game deep, that’s been my gameplan, glad it paid off today. Me and Shrijith have batted a lot together, we knew the wicket was good to bat. We just looked to take the game on, we were getting a boundary every over and it was about putting the pressure back.
“The gameplan was always to get around 5-6 runs an over, fortunately every over through the middle we got 4-5 singles and a boundary. We wanted to show intent. Right from the first match, that’s been the role given to me, I try to stick to that and take the game deep,” said Smaran after winning the Player of the Match honour.
Opener Dhruv Shorey’s valiant century (110) and Harsh Dubey’s blistering cameo (63) was not enough for Vidarbha to mount a comeback as the side fell 36 runs short of the monster chase.
Skipper Karun Nair (27) and Shorey build a 57-run partnership before the former’s wicket was castled by Prasidh Krishna.
Vidarbha’s middle order failed to support Shorey’s knock as Yash Kadam (15), Jitesh Sharma (34), Shubham Dubey (8) and Apoorv Wankhade (12) all fell at regular intervals.
Dubey’s late flurry of boundaries brought his side close to the finish line, as he scored at a strike rate of 210, but with no supporting cast, Vidarbha fell short of the target
“Still have a long season to go and many more games to win. It’s a mixture of lot of things, we gave 20-25 runs extra, they batted well. We started well but we lost wickets at regular intervals and that made it difficult for us. It was a great game of cricket, congratulations to Karnataka,” said Nair after the game.
Brief Scores: Karnataka 348/6 ( Smaran Ravichandran 101, Abhinav Manohar 79; Darshan Nalkande 2-67) defeated Vidarbha 312/10 in 48.2 overs ( Dhruv Shorey 110, Harsh Dubey 63; Vasuki Koushik 3-47) by 36-run.
–IANS
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