Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: Tamil Nadu trumps Manipur in style

In more ways than one, it was the perfect recoil by for the winning side, which surprisingly had surrendered to Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and was thus left to regroup itself.

FILE PHOTO: Tamil Nadu's Murugan Ashwin in action

It was virtually a no-contest as Tamil Nadu notched up an easy nine-wicket win over Manipur in Group B of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Twenty20 tournament at the Kariyavattom Sports Hub on Thursday. In more ways than one, it was the perfect recoil by for the winning side, which surprisingly had surrendered to Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and was thus left to regroup itself. That it just did that left the North Eastern side scurrying for cover would be an understatement. Such was the dominance of Tamil Nadu that its third win in four matches finally took the shape of a mere formality.

As it happened Choosing to field first after winning the spin of the coin, Tamil Nadu never even allowed the Manipuri batsmen to settle down. None of them were able to get into double figures before being shot out for a paltry 55 in 18.4 overs with Natarajan Thangarasu and Ashwin Murugan running through the Manipur innings before returning with figures of three for seven and three for eight, respectively. This after R. Sai Kishore had struck twice early on and Washington Sundar bowled out his quota of four overs quite impressively conceding just 13 runs.

Left thus with an easy chase, Tamil Nadu was put to a great start by M. Vijay who really went after the Manipur bowling, scoring 33 of the 34 that the side put on in the first two overs. Vijay was run out at the same individual score going for a non-existent single, but Washington Sundar and Mohammed Saleem helped Tamil Nadu reach the measly target in 4.1 overs.  

Brief scores:Manipur 55 in 18.4 overs (Natarajan Thangarasu 3/7, Ashwin Murugan 3/8) lost to Tamil Nadu 58 for 1 in 4.1 overs (M. Vijay 33).