Karnataka clinched their fourth Vijay Hazare Trophy after beating Tamil Nadu in the rain-interrupted final of Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019/20.
On Friday (25th October), Karnataka met the record five-time winners Tamil Nadu in the final of Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019/20. Karnataka sent Tamil Nadu to bat first after winning the toss.
After losing first two wickets in just 24 runs on the board, Tamil Nadu opener Abhinav Mukund and no.4 batsman Baba Aparajith built up a strong partnership of 124 runs for the third wickets. While Mukund scored 85 runs off 110 balls (9 fours), Aparajith scored 66 runs off 84 balls (7 fours).
Once that partnership was broken, Tamil Nadu lost their wickets at regular intervals. The middle-order batsmen Vijay Shankar (38) and Shahrukh Khan (27) also scored some important runs which helped them to cross 250 marks.
In the final over of that innings, Karnataka pacer Abhimanyu Mithun claimed a hat-trick. The right-arm medium pacer dismissed Shahrukh Khan (27), M Mohammed (10) and Murugan Ashwin (0) in three consecutive deliveries to complete his hat-trick.
On his 30th birthday, Mithun managed the bowling figures of 9.5-0-34-5. Finally, Tamil Nadu were all out on 252 runs (49.5 overs).
Karnataka were 146/1 in 23 overs when the rain started
Chasing down that target, the most run-scorer in this tournament, Karnataka opener Devdutt Padikkal lost his wicket on just 11 runs. However, another opener KL Rahul handled that innings very well along with the no.3 batsman Mayank Agarwal. They provided the unbroken 112 runs partnership for the second wicket before the rain-interruption.
When the rain stopped that game, Karnataka were batting on 146/1 in 23 overs. Rahul was batting on 52 off 72 balls (11 fours) and Agarwal was not out on 69 runs off 55 balls (7 fours and 3 sixes).
Finally, Karnataka won that game after that game had no more action. In that exact situation, the VJD target was 87/1. Karnataka already scored far better runs than the target as they won that game by 60 runs (VJD method).
It is the fourth Vijay Hazare Trophy for Karnataka, second-most after Tamil Nadu (five times).