Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019-20: Final, Karnataka vs Tamil Nadu – Tamil Nadu's first defeat in a final, Mithun's birthday special, Mayank's big match awareness and more stats

Karnataka clinched the Vijay Hazare Trophy for the 4th time by defeating Tamil Nadu in southern derby final on Friday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Abhinav Mukund (85) and Baba Aparajith’s (66) fifties led Tamil Nadu to 148/2 in the 31st over. However, the lack of urgency shown by the middle-order saw them finishing with only 252. They scored 52/3 during 31-42 overs period and lost a couple of senior batsmen.

On his 30th birthday, Abhimanyu Mithun registered his maiden 5-wicket haul in List A cricket which included a last over hat-trick. Karnataka lost a wicket early but Mayank Agarwal’s quick-fire 69* off 55 balls along with KL Rahul (52*) put the hosts on top. Karnataka (146/1 in 23 overs) were 60 runs ahead on the VJD method before the game came to an end due to bad light and rain.

All the statistical highlights from Karnataka’s grand win against Tamil Nadu in the final:

A final loss for Tamil Nadu:

1 – Tamil Nadu lost a one-day tournament final for the first time. They won all the three Vijay Hazare Trophy finals before losing this. They featured in finals of two Ranji One-Day Trophy editions where they won one and tied in the other.

4 – Karnataka now has won all the four Vijay Hazare Trophy finals they have featured; all since 2013/14. Three other teams won VHT once apiece in the last seven seasons while Karnataka alone won four. Tamil Nadu (5) is the only other team to win four or more Vijay Hazare Trophy titles (including two Ranji One-Day Trophies).

The first defeat in 16 years for Tamil Nadu:

2002 – Last time Tamil Nadu lost in a List A match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium was against Karnataka in 2002/03 season by 29 runs. Between two defeats, Tamil Nadu won all the five List A games they played at this venue including two against the home team.

A birthday special from Mithun:

1 – Abhimanyu Mithun became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the final of Vijay Hazare Trophy. In fact, Mithun was also the first player with a hat-trick in List A cricket for Karnataka.

2 – Mithun is only the 2nd player to take a hat-trick in both Ranji Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy. Murali Karthik was the first player to achieve this feat. Mithun’s Ranji hat-trick was against Uttar Pradesh in the 2009/10 season.

Big match player:

3 – Mayank Agarwal stood as the top scorer for Karnataka in each of their last three Vijay Hazare Trophy finals (69*, 90, 125) and finished the player of the match during the previous two occasions. Mayank was also the top-scorer for Karnataka during their maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 title this year where he scored 85* in the final which fetched him the player of the match award.

118.4 – Mayank has a batting average of 118.4 across his last seven knockout matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He crossed 40 in all those seven innings and also struck three fifties and two hundreds.

King of VHT:

1057 – Mayank Agarwal amassed over 1000 runs from his last 15 innings in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He struck three hundreds and seven fifties at an average of 81.31 in this period. The unbeaten 69 on Friday was his highest List A score at Chinnaswamy.

A rare treble for Rahul:

4 – KL Rahul is only the 4th player to as many as three 50+ scores in the knockouts of a Vijay Hazare Trophy edition. Abhinav Mukund in 2009/10, Wasim Jaffer in 2011/12 and Mayank Agarwal in 2017/18 are the other players with this feat.

Devdutt goes past Karthik:

609 – Devdutt Padikkal’s 609 runs in this edition are the 2nd most runs in a Vijay Hazare Trophy behind Mayank Agarwal’s 733 in the 2017/18 season. Dinesh Karthik’s 607 runs in the 2016/17 season are now the 3rd most.

Abhinav Mukund amassed 600 runs while Babar Aparajith and KL Rahul also scored 598 runs each in this season which stand in the top five list of most runs in a Vijay Hazare edition.