On Wednesday, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu won their respective semi-finals to meet each other in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019 final summit game.
While here Karnataka thrashed Chhattisgarh with nine wickets at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru at Just Cricket Academy (JCA) Ground, Tamil Nadu registered a five-wicket victory over Gujarat in the rain-affected low-scoring game.
Chasing Chhattisgarh’s 224-run target, Karnataka got off to a fine start as openers KL Rahul and Devdutt Padikkal shared a 155-run partnership to put their side in the driver’s seat for the first wicket.
Although Rahul played an unbeaten 88-run knock before he got out, Padikkal made 92 runs after which India’s opener Mayank Agarwal played an unbeaten 33-ball 44-run cameo to help Karnataka win in just 40 overs.
Earlier being asked to bat first, Chhattisgarh’s Amandeep Khare’s 78 and Sumit Ruikar’s 40 took their side to a moderate total in 49.4 overs before they were bowled out. For Karnataka, medium-pacer V Koushik scalped four wickets.
It should be a keenly contested game of cricket. Since both teams have never lost a Vijay Hazare Trophy final, it adds an extra element of intrigue.
Probable XI’s:
Karnataka Probable XI:
Mayank Agarwal, Lokesh Rahul(w), Devdutt Padikkal, Manish Pandey(c), Karun Nair, Rohan Kadam, Praveen Dubey, Krishnappa Gowtham, Abhimanyu Mithun, V Koushik, Ronit More
Tamil Nadu Probable XI:
Abhinav Mukund, Murali Vijay, Baba Aparajith, Vijay Shankar, Dinesh Karthik(w/c), Washington Sundar, Shahrukh Khan, Murugan Ashwin, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Krishnamoorthy Vignesh, T Natarajan
The final of the tournament will be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday.
