Classy Smaran’s stroke-filled century leads Karnataka to Vijay Hazare title | Cricket News
“Shot-ra Dei!” Shouts of joy rang out from the Karnataka dugout when Smaran Ravichandran started to unfurl boundaries to drag the team from 67 for 3 in the 15th over towards a very competitive total in the final of Vijay Hazare Trophy.In the end, his splendid 103, allied with breezy fifties from Abhinav Manohar (42-ball 79) and Krishnan Shrijith (78) propelled Karnataka to a match-winning 348. Vidarbha’s resance came from Dhruv Shorey, who scored his third consecutive hundred, and Harsh Dubey (30-ball 63) who threatened an unlikely he but fell well short in the end.“It’s a very interesting period for Karnataka, lot of youngsters coming in with great skill sets and mentality. Unbelievable to be part of this group and to have won the trophy. Was a game-changing partnership, we were 67/3, for them (Smaran and Shrijth) to play with that maturity and take the game deep and then for Abhinav Manohar to come in and play like that,” Karnataka’s captain Mayank Agarwal said later.
It was the 21-year old left-hander Smaran, though, who deservedly got those cries of joy from his teammates for his big knock. His game is crisply clean: plenty of checked-punches to seamers, a good pull when needed, and the long handle to the spinners.
It was with one such punch against Bhute that he got his innings going with a straight boundary, and before long, he had begun to flow along. Time and again, he played that shot: still in his stance before he almost glided into this shot, carefully holding the ‘shape’ and yet making it look pretty fluid. Later, when the seamer Yash Thakur tried to surprise him with a ball that reared up to his face, he quite nonchalantly swivelled to pull it down and to the boundary. In the interim, he tonked the spinners Yash Khadam and Karun Nair, who would have a rare failure in the recent times with the bat on a day when the national chief selector applauded his form but regretted he couldn’t be fitted in the Indian squad.
Watch 🎥
R Smaran’s brilliant 101 (92) that helped Karnataka post 348/6 in the #Final against Vidarbha 💪💪#VijayHazareTrophy | @IDFCFIRSTBank
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/ZZjfWXaajB pic.twitter.com/K1bmqDC5Ji
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) January 18, 2025
Smaran not only steadied the innings with a fine 160-run stand with Shrijith, but propelled it further with a frenetic 106-run partnership in just 11 overs with Manohar. Abhinav Manohar, whose non-selection for the RCB irked that franchise’s fans a great deal in this auction, blasted away, targeting the off side with impunity. Every time the seamers gave him some width, he made some of his own standing still on the leg-stump line, he carved them through covers or squarer as the runs flowed.
Smaran explained his game plan at the end of the game. “That’s been the plan, just to take the game deep, that’s been my gameplan, glad it paid off today. Me and Shrijith have batted a lot together, we knew the wicket was good to bat. We just looked to take the game on, we were getting a boundary every over and it was about putting the pressure back. The game plan was always to get around 5-6 runs an over, fortunately every over through the middle we got 4-5 singles and a boundary. We wanted to show intent. Right from the first match, that’s been the role given to me, I try to stick to that and take the game deep.”
Vidarbha couldn’t quite nail down their chase as perfectly as they would have wanted. The fireworks came from just two men: the opener Shorey and No.8 Dubey. The rest couldn’t quite stitch together any meaningful contributions, and unsurprisingly, the chase derailed. It was left to Dubey to inject some excitement in the end, and going the tense faces in the Karnataka dugout and the fielders, it must be said he was pretty successful.
He plundered 19 runs in the 48th of the innings, bowled Prasidh Krishna with a reverse-lapped four to third man boundary being the highlight. Once that full-length was dismissed like that, Prasidh tried to keep hitting the back of length, his natural delivery, and Dubey kept smashing them on the up and through the line to pick a couple of sixes. But an over-ambitious shot off the last ball from his partner Markande who holed out to long-off meant Dubey now had to also farm the strike. Two balls into the next over, after not taking a run in the first despite carting it to near the boundary, he fell, hocking Abhilash Shetty to deep midwicket.
It triggered scenes of joy in the Karnataka camp, stumps were uprooted with glee, celebratory dance shuffles done, before the captain Mayank composed himself, and shook hands with the opposing captain, a former Karnataka player, Karun Nair.
Brief scores: Karnataka 348/6 (Smaran 101, Manohar 79, Shrijith 78; Nalkande 2/67) bt Vidarbha 312 (Shorey 110, H Dubey 63; Koushik 3/47, Shetty 3/58) 36 runs
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