Right from the toss, everything went right for Tamil Nadu as it produced a clinical all-round performance to beat Rajasthan by seven wickets in the semifinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament here at the Lalbhai Contractor Stadium on Friday.
On Sunday, TN will face-off against Karnataka in a summit clash for the second time this year. The two Southern sides met in the final of the Vijay Hazare trophy last month which Karnataka won.
Choosing to field first, TN bowlers continued their good run in the tournament restricting Rajasthan to a modest score of 112/9.
Deepak Chahar, who slammed an unbeaten 55 in the last match, opened the batting for Rajasthan but the skipper perished cheaply on Friday bowled by left-arm spinner R. Sai Kishore.
From there on, Rajasthan never strung together any meaningful partnerships with highest being a 30-run eighth-wicket stand between Chandrapal Singh and Ravi Bishnoi. For TN, Vijay Shankar scalped two wickets in the middle overs while R. Ashwin, T Natarajan, M Siddharth picked up one each.
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With Ashwin around, there never is a lack of a surprise and on Friday India’s premier spinner was sent to wield his bat at the top of the order with C. Hari Nishanth in pursuit of the modest chase.
After Hari was dismissed for a duck, Ashwin made a valuable 31 (33b, 4x4) as he put together a 69-run partnership with Washington Sundar for the second-wicket to set the match up for TN.
Washington for the third match in succession produced yet another fine batting display with an unbeaten 54 (46b, 3x4, 3x6).
Brief scores:
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