Dinesh Karthik shoulders batting line-up, scores ton to rescue Tamil Nadu

A hundred in a tournament final is special and Dinesh Karthik’s smile said it all when he ran that 100th run against Himachal Pradesh in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2021 final while playing for Tamil Nadu in Jaipur on Sunday. 

The right-hander had almost played the ball onto his stumps but it somehow didn’t hit the woodwork behind him. Karthik completed his century. 

Tamil Nadu didn’t really have a great start to the proceedings as the Himachal Pradesh bowlers did take early advantage of the conditions at Sawai Mansingh Stadium and scalped four early wickets to leave Tamil Nadu struggling at 40/4. Karthik and Baba Indrajith shouldered the innings seeing out the tough spells of Himachal pace bowlers. They were earlier shielded for a brief period by R Sai Kishore and Murugan Ashwin, two lower order batsmen who were promoted up the order.

At the time of writing TN were 283/6 after 46 overs with Shahrukh Khan and Vijay Shankar in middle.

The two batsmen took up the onus on themselves and stitched a stand of 202 runs for the fifth wicket before Indrajith departed for a well-compiled 80 off 71 balls. Karthik followed him in a span of four runs to get dismissed for a 103-ball 116, a knock that included seven maximums and 8 fours during the course. 

Both Karthik and Indrajith did a brilliant job in rebuilding the innings as they started off in a cautious manner and then took on the bowlers once they got their eye in. Karthik, though also got some help from the Himachal Pradesh fielders as he was dropped twice, first by the wicket-keeper in 33rd over and then by the fielder stationed at the short third man area while he was in 90s in the 39th over.