Vaisakh Chandran, on his debut, spun Kerala to a stunning 53-run win against Karnataka in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament at Mohali on Wednesday. The off-spinner, playing for the senior side in any format, took four for 11, as the former champion finished at 126 for nine, chasing 180.
He opened the bowling and struck with his fourth ball. It was a prize scalp too, as he had Mayank Agarwal caught at third man by Manu Krishnan for a duck.
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Vaisakh in his next over trapped L.R. Chethan, who came in as the impact player (substitute), in front. He went on to take the wickets of Devdutt Padikkal and Manish Pandey.
Remarkably he took all four wickets as Karnataka slumped to 52 for four. Kerala’s impact player S. Midhun made it 56 for five, sending back a dangerous-looking Luvnith Sisodia (36, 28b, 6x4). The leg-spinner would take another wicket to record figures of two for
Abhinav Manohar waged a lone battle and remained 46 not out (27b, 1x4, 4x6).
Earlier, Mohammed Azharuddeen’s 95 off just 47 balls (8x4, 6x6) was the main reason behind Kerala’s challenging total of 179 for four. Vishnu Vinod (34, 27b, 3x4, 1x6) and Rohan Kunnummal (16) had put on 45 for the first wicket.
Vaisakh said he had been dreaming about doing something like that for years.
“I came to know that I would be playing only today but I had felt there was a chance because Karnataka had quite a few left-handers,” the 26-year-old told Sportstar.
“It felt great to take wickets of stars like Mayank, Padikkal and Manish.”
He said he had been prepared to take the new ball. “I was doing that at the KCA President’s Cup tournament, which has been a boon for players like me,” he said.
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