Tamil Nadu should ‘go the distance’ to lift Vijay Hazare Trophy

Sitting at the top of the points table, at the end of the league rounds, with 20 points from 6 games (5 wins, 1 loss), with +1.254 NRR (the best amongst the 8 teams qualified for the knock-out rounds), the ace-offie, Ravichandran Ashwin, led Tamil Nadu, appears to be ‘hot favourites’ to lift the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2015.

Baba Aparajith is the tournament’s ‘leading run scorer’ with 374 runs from 5 matches (5 innings – once unbeaten) at an average of 93.50 backed by 28 fours and 2 sixes, with 137 as his individual best at 86.57 strike rate.

Giving him company in the batting department are his twin-brother, Baba Indrajith, Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik and V Shankar, all of whom have had a reasonably good outing in the league stage. Being grouped along with tough teams like Punjab, Mumbai, Services etc and qualifying for the knockout round was not an easy task.

The natural calamity that the state of Tamil Nadu had undergone in the first two weeks of December 2015 would have had a great psychological impact on the players. To come out of such trying times and to put up a spectacular performance in the league stage, speaks volumes about the grit and determination of Ashwin and his boys. It would have been never too easy.

With this background, they have won five out of six games in the league rounds and the victories have also been very significant ones. They beat Assam by 6 wickets, Mumbai by 26 runs, Services by 7 wickets, Hyderabad by 3 wickets and Rajasthan by 252 runs, losing only to Punjab by 6 wickets.

Tamil Nadu also established a record of winning by the largest margin of runs in the league stage against Rajasthan (252 runs).

Ashwin, having had a successful Test series against South Africa, being crowned the Player of the Series, is in a great form. He has led the bowling attack from the front and picked up 9 wickets from 6 games (6 innings), having bowled 40.4 overs, giving away 166 runs.

The other bowlers like M Mohammed, Rasil Shah, Rajagopal Satish have also performed reasonably well in the league encounters. Rasil Shah picked up 6 wickets, giving away 37 runs in 8.2 overs in the game against Rajasthan.

Team Tamil Nadu, who are just three games away from glory, owe it to their followers and supporters, who inspite of having gone through a very torrid time at personal levels, have stood solidly behind them and supported them throughout.