Vijay Hazare Trophy: Jagadeesan, Sai Kishore, Shahrukh sparkle as TN drub Karnataka by 151 runs

Karnataka skipper Manish Pandey won the toss and elected to bowl first and they were not in picture from that moment. A power-packed batting led TN to a whopping 354 for 8 in 50 overs.

Karnataka were never in the chase and lost wickets at regular intervals, getting bowled out for 203 and none of their batsmen made a fifty.

Once Baba Aparajith returned to the hut at the team score of 24, the TN batsmen played with a lot of purpose. Opener N Jagadeesan and No 3, a rather surprise one at that, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore stitched together a big 147-run stand for the second wicket.

The runs came in a little over 23 overs, at shade over 6 runs per over, and it handed TN all the advantage. When Sai Kishore (61, 71b, 4×4, 3×6) was dismissed Tamil Nadu were at 171 for 2 in the 29th over.

It was a brilliant platform for the middle-order to cash in on and they did. Even though Jagadeesan was dismissed soon after completing his hundred (102, 101b, 9×4, 1×6), the TN run-rate never dipped.

In fact, Dinesh Karthik (44 off 37 balls) and Baba Indrajith (31 off 24 balls) provided further impetus to Tamil Nadu innings. Tamil Nadu lost a couple of wickets in the middle passage but they had a power-hitter in Shahrukh Khan.

The Chennai lad hammered 79 off just 39 balls with 7 fours and 6 sixes and underlined his maturity and growth as a cricketer in recent times. Not many would have forgotten his last ball six against Karnataka in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final a couple of weeks back and Shahrukh proved that was not any flash in the pan.

Once received the cushion of a total like 354, the TN bowlers stuck to their task and never allowed the Karnataka batsmen to have a free hand.

S Sharath (43), Abhinav Manohar (34) and KV Siddharth (29) got starts but the target demanded much more substantial effort from them and on this day it was not coming.