Vijay Hazare Trophy : Mayank Agrawal’s 90 help Karnataka win trophy for third time
Mayank Agarwal's 90-run knock in the final against Saurashtra helped Karnataka in lifting their third Vijay Hazare Trophy title in the last five years. Though Cheteshwar Pujara put up a fighting knock of 94 runs in the second innings, Saurashtra eventually fell short by 41 runs.
Brief scores: Karnataka 253/10 (Mayank Agarwal 90, Pavan Deshpande 49, R Samarth 48; Kamlesh Makvana 4-34) beat Saurashtra 212/10 (Cheteshwar Pujara 94; K Gowtham 3-27, Prasidh Krishna 3-37) by 41 runs.
Karnataka defeated Saurashtra in the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy on the back of Mayank Agarwal’s blazing 90-run knock in the first innings that helped Karnataka to post a respectable target 254, batting first. With this win, Karnataka has now won the title thrice in the last five years with their previous wins coming in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons.
Mayank Agarwal broke a 15-year-old record set by Sachin Tendulkar, who had managed to score 673 runs in the 2003 season of the tournament. Mayank recorded a whopping 723 runs in eight games this season, which also included three centuries.
Karnataka started on a poor note in the final, as they lost Karun Nair and KL Rahul for ducks by the end of the first three overs. However, Mayank and Ravikumar Samarth shared a 136 run partnership thereafter that eased the pressure off the Karnataka's middle order. After managing 253 in the first innings, Karnataka didn't allow any Saurashtra batsman to settle down as they kept on chipping away wickets at regular intervals.
Cheteshwar Pujara’s fighting knock of 94 wasn't sufficient to take Saurashtra home as they fell short of the target by 41 runs in the end. Karnataka's Prasidh Krishna and Krishnappa Gowtham managed to pick up three wickets each as they restricted Saurashtra for just 212 runs.
