Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017, Final Review: Tamil Nadu lift the trophy, thanks to Dinesh Karthik’s innings of 112

The much-awaited finals of the Vijay Hazare Tournament begun with Tamil Nadu and Bengal reaching the finals, thanks to their victories over Baroda and Jharkhand respectively. Tamil Nadu was on the verge of their 5th Vijay Hazare trophy.

Vijay Shankar, Tamil Nadu’s skipper, won the toss and elected to bat on a Feroz Shah Kotla pitch which was deemed flat with no movement or seam for the pace bowlers whatsoever. However, the pitch report suggested some turn late on the day for the spinners.

Manoj Tiwary made one change to the side that defeated Jharkhand in the semi-finals with Mohammed Shami returning to the line-up in place of Ghosh. Tamil Nadu openers Kaushik Gandhi and Ganga Sridhar Raju walked out to the middle of the park to face the pace attack of Ashoke Dinda and Kanishk Seth.

Tiwary’s side got off to a dream start with Dinda’s pace triggering the opener Ganga Sridhar Raju to knick the ball into the hands of the keeper to be dismissed for four runs. Kaushik followed his opener’s dismissal with some positive batting scoring three boundaries in the space of 3 overs to propel the score to 25/1 at the end of the 6th over.

Dinda’s pace and angles were the reason for another dismissal, this time Kaushik’s bat going across the line to get an inside edge cannoning into the stump. Dinesh Karthik, who was the man of the match in the semi-finals started his innings confidently with two boundaries in his first three deliveries.

Mohammed Shami struck in his first over dismissing Tamil Nadu’s all-rounder Baba Aparajith, who fell cheaply for five runs. Enter skipper Vijay Shankar to elevate the team from the pit. The pair had added 13 runs before the captain was dismissed for two runs off Dinda’s bowling.

At 49/4, Bengal had the match in their grip with Tiwary’s bowling changes being right on target. Baba Indrajith walked out to join Dinesh Karthik in the middle. The pair put up a crucial partnership of 85 runs which was the game-changing partnership of the innings.

Throughout the partnership, neither of the two batsmen were truly beaten by pace or spin. The pair batted on till the 28th over of the innings before which Indrajith was dismissed due to an unlucky run-out after the ball hit Indrajith’s arm before the short cover fielder took advantage of it to throw down the stumps.

All-rounder Washington Sundar walked out to bat with Tamil Nadu’s
score reading 138/5. The pair had added 38 runs before the latter was run out due to a lack of communication between the two for a well-made 22 runs in the 37th over of the innings.

Tamil Nadu were 173/6 at the end of the 37th over. Another small partnership of 28 runs was vital in the course of the game. During the partnership, Dinesh Karthik completed his century in an unorthodox manner with a reverse sweep past the point fielder.

Tamil Nadu reached 214 runs with three overs remaining in the innings before delivery from Shami was enough to dismiss Karthik in a rather weird way, with the wicket-keeper getting dismissed hit-wicket off Mohammed Shami to end the innings at 217 runs.

Shreevats Goswami and Abhimanyu Easwaran walked out in their bid to chase down the 217 runs scored by Tamil Nadu. The openers got off to a rather quiet start with only four runs coming off the first four overs. Aswin Crist’s over dampened the chances of a Bengal victory with two wickets in the same over.

Easwaran was dismissed by a throw from the bowler Aswin Crist before taking Agniv Pan’s off-stump for a walk after the batsmen failed to get a bat on the delivery. Tiwary and Goswami had a task cut out in front of them. They got off to a good start before an impressive catch dismissed the opener off the bowling of Rahil Shah for 23 runs.

Sudip Chatterjee and Manoj Tiwary began to attack the bowlers before the skipper was clean bowled by his counter-part after a poor shot selection by the Bengal captain. At 68/4, the tides turned in Tamil Nadu’s favour before a 65-run partnership between Sudip and Anustup Majumdar turned the match in Bengal’s favour.

Anustup was dismissed after he failed to get bat on ball for 24 runs. Aamir Gani joined Sudip Chatterjee in the middle. Three overs later, a misjudgement by the left-hander got him bowled off the left-arm spinner Sai Kishore with the score being 143-6.

77 runs off the last 66 deliveries was a huge task for the tail-enders as the entire Bengal side was dismissed for 180 runs. Tamil Nadu clinched their 5th Vijay Hazare trophy with a clinical 37-run win over Tiwary’s Bengal side.

Dinesh Karthik was announced as the man of the match for his brilliant innings of 112 runs.

Brief Scores:
Tamil Nadu 217 in 47.2 overs (Dinesh Karthik 112 runs, Mohammed Shami 4-26)

Bengal 180 all out in 45.5 overs (Sudip Chatterjee 58 runs, Aswin Crist 2-23)

Tamil Nadu won by 37 runs