Skipper Manish Pandey led from the front with a sublime half-century before the bowlers produced a team effort to help Karnataka become the first team to retain the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy since its inception. They beat Tamil Nadu by one run in a thrilling final at Surat on Sunday.
Sent into bat, Karnataka made a challenging 180/5, riding on skipper Manish Pandey’s 45-ball unbeaten 60 and useful contribution from Rohan Kadam (35), Devdutt Padikkal (32) and KL Rahul (22).
In reply, all Tamil Nadu batsmen got off to starts but failed to make them count. All-rounder Vijay Shankar top-scored with a 44 off 27 balls while Baba Aparajith made 40 off 25 balls. The duo shared 71 runs for the fifth wicket to give Tamil Nadu a glimmer of hope.
After Aparajith’s dismissal, Shankar and Ravichandran Ashwin (16 not out) kept Tamil Nadu in the hunt but they fell just short of the target in the end as Karnataka’s bowlers dished out a fine death over bowling display to restrict the opposition to 179 for six in their 20 overs.
Here’s how Twitter reacted to the thrilling game:
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