With a 156-run win over Punjab, reigning domestic one-day champions, Karnataka defended the title in a one-sided clash in Ahmedabad. After Robin Uthappa and Mayank Agarwal (125) set the tone of the innings with a 162-run opening stand, Karnataka amassed 359/7 in a bid to retain the title. Their bowlers then bowled Punjab out for 203 to lift the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
After a circumspect beginning, the openers milked the bowlers as they forged a solid foundation. The pair paced their innings and kept the scoreboard moving but also dispatched the ball to the fence at regular intervals to maintain a healthy run-rate. At the end of the mandatory powerplay they had taken the team to 66 and kept the momentum going.
Uthappa was the first to reach his fifty and unleashed himself on the bowlers, while Agarwal soon followed suit. However, while on 87, Uthappa pulled at a Baltej Singh delivery and was caught by Manan Vohra at short mid-wicket. With the end of the opener’s blitzkrieg, Karun Nair joined Agarwal in the run-fest.
A while later, with the team comfortably placed and past the 200-run mark, Agarwal brought up his century. But after adding 25 runs to his ton, he was caught at square-leg by Siddarth Kaul off Sandeep Sharma. With the end of the stand for 85, Manish Pandey joined Nair in the middle and the pair put together 87 runs for the third wicket, until Amitoze ended the partnership.
But, by then, Punjab were in commanding position with 334 runs on the board. Pandey dragged Amitoze’s delivery on to the stumps and departed for 40. But Nair struck two boundaries in the over to help add ten runs from the over. In the following over however, the batsmen departed taking the aerial route to Baltej and was caught by Taruwar Kohli for 86.
And a ball later, the bowler sent back Stuart Binny. In the last over, Sandeep Sharma was on a hattrick after claiming Shishir Bhavane and Abhimanyu Mithun off the first two balls. But, Jagadeesha Suchith survived the delivery and two balls later, with a boundary off the last ball took the team to 359. In the last three overs, while looking to add on to the pile of runs, the Vinay Kumar-led side lost five wickets.
Vinay provided first breakthrough with the wicket of Vohra in the third over. Mandeep Singh then joined Amitoze in the middle in an effort to scale the mountainous task. But with the partnership on 82, the opener was run out for 46.
A few overs later, Sreenath Aravind sent back Yuvraj Singh who while looking to pull was caught by Agarwal giving Karnataka an important breakthrough. Couple of overs later, Gurkeerat Singh Mann was trapped lbw by Binny while Kohli was run out five runs later. With the team on 148/5 Gitansh Khera then joined Mandeep who had held up one end as he fought to keep the team in the game. But eight runs later the middle-order bat was castled by Binny for 76.
With the team tottering on 156/6 Harbhajan Singh came out to the middle and while chasing the uphill task was out leg-before to Suchith. Kaul was the next to be removed five overs later, bowled by Mithun as Karnataka inched towards a victory. And off the last ball of the over the pacer disrupted Khera’s stumps for 14. In his next, Mithun accounted Sandeep to warp-up the Punjab innings in 38.2 overs and finish with three wickets.
