Aman Mokhade ton sends Vidarbha to VHT final

A fantastic ton by opener Aman Mokhade helped Vidarbha beat Karnataka in the Vijay Hazare Trophy semi final. In what was a repeat of last year's final, Vidarbha got their revenge following a well-paced batting performance in the second half to hunt down Karnataka's 280 with 22 balls to spare.

Vidarbha got off to a poor start when Atharva Taide departed early in the chase for just 6 as Karnataka's new ball bowlers bowled a probing spell to cause problems. While Mokhade made only 10 from 26 balls in the powerplay, Dhruv Shorey fetched a couple of boundaries to drag his side to 32/1 after 10 overs. Vidarbha continued to be watchful with their run rate well below 4 even after 16 overs. Mokhade finally broke free with a six off Vyshak Vijaykumar before adding another boundary against Shreyas Gopal enroute to his fifty.

Abhilash Shetty then came back to end the flourishing partnership but Mokhade, by now, was in his element, scoring freely. Ravikumar Samarth, a former Karnataka player, proved to be the ideal partner at the other end as the duo grew into confidence. Mokhade completed his century in the 35th over and then put Karnataka under severe pressure by fetching more boundaries that put Vidarbha in complete control. Even though he fell for 138, it hardly mattered as Samarth got the job done, staying unbeaten on 76.

Earlier in the day, a rare failure in the tournament for Devdutt Padikkal put Karnataka under the pump early in the game. Yash Thakur got the ball to move around and trouble Padikkal before eventually snaring him for just 4 off 19 balls. Mayank Agarwal was also sent back early as Karnataka then relied on Karun Nair again to revive them. While Dhruv Prabhakar didn't last long, Nair joined forces with Krishnan Shrijith to rescue Karnataka.

Nair, who initially was conservative, slowly began to make up for lost time. Both Nair and Shrijith hit sparkling half-centuries in their century partnership and put Karnataka in a very good position at 187/3 after 33 overs. However, Darshan Nalkande turned the game around with Nair's wicket before ripping apart the middle and lower middle order. If not for Shreyas Gopal's vital 39 and a couple of sixes at the end from Vijaykumar, Karnataka would have struggled to post anywhere near the 280 they finished with. Nalkande for his efforts was rewarded with a five-fer which eventually had a massive say in the final result.

Brief scores: Karnataka 280 in 49.4 overs (Karun Nair 76, Krishnan Shrijith 54; Darshan Nalkande 5/48) lost to Vidarbha 284/4 in 46.2 overs (Aman Mokhade 138, Ravikumar Samarth 76*; Abhilash Shetty 3/48) by 6 wickets