Surat:Riding on captain Manish Pandey's 60* off 45 balls, Karnataka beat Tamil Nadu by one run in a thrilling final to win the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, here on Sunday.
Chasing a target of 181 runs, Tamil Nadu's Hari Nishanth started aggressively and smashed three boundaries to Ronit More. However, he couldn't carry it forward and got out (14) in the same over.
After Haris's wicket, Karnataka's Shreyas Gopal took the wicket of the other opener, Shahrukh Khan (16).
From there on, Dinesh Karthik and Washington Sundar managed to have a 20 runs stand for the third wicket, before Kartik was sent back to the pavilion.
Krishnappa Gowtham then bowled Sundar (24) to reduce Tamil Nadu on 80/4 after the completion of 10 overs.
After 10 overs, TN were struggling in the match but Vijay Shankar and Baba Aparajith played brilliantly and took Tamil Nadu past 150 runs. Soon after crossing the 150-run mark, More took the wicket of Aparajith (40).
Aparajith's dismissal brought Ravichandran Ashwin on the field. Shankar and Ravichandran Ashwin (16 not out) kept Tamil Nadu in the hunt till the last ball.
Needing 13 runs from the last over, Ashwin struck two consecutive boundaries off K Gowtham to reduce the margin but Shankar's run out two balls later cost Tamil Nadu dearly.
Needing three off the last ball, Murugan Ashwin could only manage one as Karnataka managed to restrict them to 179 runs, winning the title for the second consecutive time.(UNI)
