Tamil Nadu regained the Vijay Hazare trophy after beating Bengal by 37 runs in the final of the 2017 edition. With this win, they become the only team to win the tournament five times (one of them was shared with Uttar Pradesh in 2004-05).
Chasing a modest total of 218 to win, Tamil Nadu opening bowlers struck early as they dismissed the dangerous Abhimanyu Easwaran and Agniv Pan inside the first 5 overs with the scorecard reading just 4 runs. The bowled brilliantly and made sure that the batsmen didn't get off to a good start in the first ten overs.
Bengal skipper Manoj Tiwary and Shreevats Goswami tried to pull things back before Rahil Shah had the latter caught by Vijay Shankar for 23. Soon after, Tiwary was castled by Vijay Shankar for 32 and that shifted the momentum in favour of TN. Anustup Majumdar and Sudip Chatterjee revived the Bengal innings and put them back on track.
Sudip reached his fifty and the duo shared a 65-run stand for the fifth wicket before Majumdar was trapped in front off B Aparajith for 24.
A couple of overs later, Sudip was castled by Rahil Shah for 58 and that sealed the game for TN. Mohammad Shami tried to entertain the fans by hitting some big shots but he could manage to hit only one six before getting out for 8. It was just a matter of time before Tamil Nadu cleaned up the Bengal tail.
Eventually, Bengal were dismissed for 180 with Sudip being the top scorer. For TN, it was the tournament’s leading wicket-taker, Aswin Crist along with M Mohammad and Rahil Shah who took 2 wickets apiece.
Earlier in the day, Tamil Nadu put managed to score 217 in spite of an early batting collapse. Dinesh Karthik, who was the leading run-scorer of the tournament, scored a match-winning century and saved his team from blushes. He was the last batsman to depart when he was dismissed in a bizarre manner for 118.
Extra cover: Dinesh Karthik loses wicket via hit-wicket on a wide delivery
He was well supported by Baba Indrajith and Washington Sundar, who scored 32 and 22 respectively. Mohammad Shami, who is playing the finals to prove his fitness, returned with figures of 4/26 in his 8 overs while Ashok Dinda picked up 3/36.
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 217 in 47.2 overs (Dinesh Karthik 112, Mohammad Shami 4/28, Ashok Dinda 3/36) beat Bengal 180 (Sudip Chatterjee 58, Aswin Crist 2/23, M Mohammad 2/30) ) by 37 runs.
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