Skipper Dinesh Karthik led from the front with a 91-ball 95 (8x4, 1x6) to power Tamil Nadu to a massive 212-run win over Services in the Elite Group C match of Vijay Hazare trophy here at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Wednesday.
He was ably supported by C. Hari Nishaanth with the bat (73, 71b, 7x4, 1x6) and later K. Vignesh with the ball who picked up a five-wicket haul (5/41) as Services was bowled out for 82 chasing TN’s score of 294.
Put into bat, under gloomy conditions with slight drizzle just before the start of play, Services made full use of the conditions and kept chipping away with wickets to leave TN at 54 for 4 by the 15th over.
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Openers Abhinav Mukund and N. Jagadeesan fell cheaply caught behind, the latter playing a loose shot away from the body and edging it to pacer Varun Choudhary.
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R. Sai Kishore was promoted at number three to blunt the new ball and the left-arm spinner did just that playing out 40 balls for his 15 before he and B. Aparajith fell in quick succession.
Karthik and Hari Nishanth then steadied things in the middle with risk-free cricket as they put on a 144-run stand for the fifth wicket. The duo ran hard between the wickets making good use of the big outfield. While Karthik had nine two’s in his innings, Hari had five twos and two three’s.
The two batsmen never gave a chance to the opposition but still managed to find boundaries regularly that came mostly off safe shots like late cuts behind point or by working off the pads on the leg side.
Post his fifty, Hari started to cut loose, going after left-arm pacer Raj Bahadur, hitting him for a beautiful six over long-on followed by a boundary before falling to Arun Sharma when he tried to clear mid-off; Diwesh Pathania took a brilliant catch running behind. Karthik then went after Bahadur too with a six and four to move to 94 before he hit one straight to mid-wicket trying to accelerate off Rajat Paliwal.
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Mohammed then finished off in style with a cameo hitting four huge sixes, including two sixes and a boundary off the last over in his unbeaten 36 off just 15 balls.
In reply, apart from the first five overs when four quick boundaries came, Services batsmen looked at the sea. Sai Kishore got the first breakthrough trapping opener Ravi Chauhan leg-before in the first ball of his only over before Natarajan took care of the other opener, Nakul Verma. After that Vignesh and Mohammed cleaned up the rest of the batting order. While Vignesh had people either edging to the keeper or driving to covers, Mohammed’s pace was too hot to handle with two batsmen having their stumps sent back. Vignesh then finished off picking his fifth wicket trapping Varun Choudhary leg-before.
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 294 for eight in 50 overs (Dinesh Karthik 95, C. Hari Nishaanth 73, M. Mohammed 36 n.o.) bt Services 82 in 19.1 overs (K. Vignesh five for 41, M Mohammed three for 10).
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