The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : TN pips Karnataka

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Thursday, Jan 12, 2006

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Sport - Cricket

TN pips Karnataka

Sports Reporter

HYDERABAD: Powered by a superbly-paced century by M. Vijay (102, 102 balls, 7x4, 2x6), Tamil Nadu pulled off a thrilling, penultimate-ball victory over Karnataka in the three-day final of the South Zone P.S. Ram Mohan Rao Trophy (under-25) cricket tournament at Gymkhana Grounds here on Wednesday.

Chasing a target of 256 for in 40 overs, it owed its victory primarily to a splendid knock by 21-year-old Vijay, a student of Vivekananda College (Chennai), shared two important stands — with Shiv Kumar (46, 55 balls, 1x4, 2x6) and S. Suresh (36, 35 balls, 2x6) to ensure that his team stayed in the race. And, finally he holed out C.M. Gautam, who took a fine running catch to his right at long-on, at the pavilion end, off Raju Bhaktal, with the score reading 189 for four in 33 overs. But, Gopinath (31, 32 balls, 2x4) sustained the momentum.

There was lot of excitement in the last over with Tamil Nadu needing eight runs from it. Off the first ball, Desappan was stumped by Devraj Patil off left-arm spinner Prithvinath and of the next ball, R. Srinivasan was needlessly run-out. Then, Huzefa Patel turned out to be the hero cover-driving for a four, and glancing for two. With two runs required off two balls, he swung the bowler out of the ground for a huge six over long-on to signal the memorable victory.

The scores: Karnataka 210 & 230 for six in 40 overs (C.M. Gautam 59, Raju Bhatkal 51, Devraj Patil 45) lost to Tamil Nadu 185 & 260 for eight in 39.5 overs (M. Vijay 102, Shiv Kumar 46, S. Suresh 36, Gopinath 31, Chetan Williams three for 90).

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