Vijay Hazare Trophy: Happy to deliver in crunch situation, says Hari Nishaanth

Playing in his second List A match on Wednesday, the 23-year-old walked in with his team under pressure at 55 for 4 and scored a 71-ball 73.

C. Hari Nishaanth had a dream run in the TNPL where he scored 322 runs to finish as the fourth-highest run-getter, playing as an opener for Dindigul Dragons.

C. Hari Nishaanth has been knocking on the door of Tamil Nadu’s State team for a while and got his first major break in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 earlier this year in Surat where he played two matches.

He followed it up with a dream run in the TNPL where he scored 322 runs to finish as the fourth-highest run-getter, playing as an opener for Dindigul Dragons. Playing in his second List A match on Wednesday, the 23-year-old walked in with his team under pressure at 55 for 4 and scored a 71-ball 73.

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Speaking after the match, the left-hander said, “When I get a chance in this kind of side, I should make sure I step up and deliver for the team and I am happy I was able to do it in a crunch situation.”

Tamil Nadu has re-appointed Avinash Khandelwal as its fielding coach for the current domestic season and the 37-year-old is with the team in Jaipur for the Vijay Hazare trophy.  Avinash held the same position during the 2016-17 season when TN reached the Ranji semifinals and won the Vijay Hazare and Deodhar Trophy. In the last two years, R. Prasanna was the fielding coach, who has now been elevated to the position of assistant coach. Avinash worked with the under-23 team last year as its head coach and has been Chepauk Super Gillies' assistant coach since the inception of the league in 2016.

Hari Nishanth, who is an opener, also had to adapt to playing in the middle order. “In T20s as an opener I have to be aggressive but this format demands a different approach. I am working with R Prasanna sir because he is also a left-hander and middler-order bat. He is helping me in the nets on how to approach when playing in the middle-order and about playing on these wickets,” he added.

Speaking about his knock, Hari Nishanth said, “Since it is a big ground, Dinesh Karthik spoke about running hard by picking our angles and that’s what we focussed on initially. Even the boundaries we got were mostly easy pickings like late cuts and had no risks in it.”