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Manimaran Siddharth shines as Tamil Nadu wins it’s second Syed Mushtaq Ali title
SMAT 2021 Final: Tamil Nadu hold edge over Baroda
Dinesh Karthik led Tamil Nadu will be playing in their third Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final and for the first time in two consecutive finals after being beaten by Karnataka in a thriller last year. This time around the opposition is Baroda, who have shocked most cricket pundits by beating two heavyweights in Haryana and Punjab in the knockouts and Gujarat at the group stage, remaining unbeaten throughout their campaign. Battle of perseverance Both the teams in the finals are battle-hardened having come out of all sorts of trouble in the entire tournament and remaining unbeaten throughout. While Tamil Nadu faced their biggest hurdle in the quarterfinal against Himachal Pradesh, Baroda had been subjected to danger right in their first game against Uttarakhand which they won by four runs and then again against Haryana which they won on the last ball of the match through Vishnu Solanki’s heroics. Thus in this game both the teams would be looking to bank on their skills to come out of the troublesome situations. A lot will also depend on the captaincy of Kedar Devdhar and Dinesh Karthik as both of them have been great with their decision-making skills. How they deal with the best team they are going to face would be interesting to see. Baroda would also be a bit more pumped in a way that they have beaten quality sides on their run-up to the finals in their last three games while Tamil Nadu’s win over Himachal and Rajasthan could not be rated as highly, mostly due to the absence of stars in both the teams as compared to those present in Punjab and Haryana, which Baroda have beaten. Players to watch out for Both the teams have some great players who have shown throughout the tournament. Some of them have really shone and turned the game on its head from unbelievable situations. Thus, in the final, the following players can turn out to be the game-changers. Tamil Nadu Narayan Jagadeesan Jagadeesan has been Mr Consisitent for the team from down south so far with 350 runs in seven innings with an average of almost 88 (87.50), which is huge for a T20 tournament. His strike rate of 142.27 is also as good as it gets for an opener. Thus he is going to be an important wicket for Broda, although he hasn’t been able to make a big impact in the Knockouts so far. Sai Kishore Sai Kishore is another Tamil Nadu youngster who has utilised the opportunity to make a case for himself, especially in this tournament with an amazing economy rate of 5.16, although he has taken just eight wickets in seven games. But more than the wickets, it’s the amount of pressure that he puts on the batsmen which eventually leads to wickets for other bowlers too. Dinesh Karthik The name is enough for this man. With the amount of experience that he has got of playing at higher levels, he is always going to be a man to watch out for. In this tournament heh has socred 161 runs but has been out only twice in seven innings and has an average of 80 alongside a strike rate of 161. Baroda Kedar Devdhar For Baroda, their acting captain (in absence of Krunal Pandya) Kedar Devdhar has done amazingly well as he is the third-highest run-scorer in the tournament with 333 runs at an average of 83 and with a best of 99*. He occupies one end and plays the anchor and therefore could be dangerous as he allows the likes of Vishnu Solankis and Karthik Kakade to attack from the other end before takes on the charge after settling down as well. Lukman Meriwala Meriwala could be really dangerous and it was evident during the semi-finals against Punjab as he removed two of the best Punjab batsmen Prabhsimran Singh and Abhishek Sharma quite early in the game. He is quick and can bounce the batsmen out as well along with the ability to bring the ball back in for the right-handers. He has so far picked up 14wickets in the tournament with a brilliant average of 11.78 and an economy rate of 6.22 Vishnu Solanki Solanki has won a game that was almost over for Baroda with 15 required from three balls. But apart from that also he has scored 218 runs in seven innings with an average of 54 and thus he could be a good prospect for Broda at the top of the order. Pitch Report The pitch at the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad has been on the slower side in the day games and n the night, it has been difficult to chase down totals, even as a lot of dew is there on the ground. There is an initial movement for fast bowlers in the evening and that plays an important role for the team fielding second as the fast bowlers come into play. Weather and Toss The weather at Motera for tomorrow is going to be perfect for a cricket game as there is no chance of rain. The dew is going to heavy as usual and therefore the skipper winning the toss would choose to field first. Tamil Nadu Strongest XI Hari Nishanth, N Jagadeesan, Baba Aparajith, Arun Karthik, Sonu Yadav, Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Shahrukh Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, M Mohammed, Murugan Ashwin, Aswin Crist Baroda Strongest XI Kedar Devdhar (c), Smit Patel (wk), Vishnu Solanki, Abhimanyu Rajput, Ninad Rathva, Atit Sheth, Bhanu Pania, Babashafi Pathan, Lukman Meriwala, Bhargav Bhatt, Karthik Kakade
SMAT: Baroda thumps fancied Punjab in a one-sided affair; will take on TN in final
A well-oiled unit of Baroda, inspired by captain Kedar Deaodahar’s batting and active decision making in the field, beat Punjab in a one-sided affair at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera to move to the finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021. It was a surprise in the sense that Punjab had defeated big teams like Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh in their group with huge margins. Punjab couldn’t get to a start that they needed while chasing 161 as they lost two of their main batsmen Abhishek Sharma and Prabhsimran Singh, the two men that had propelled Punjab to better starts in the previous matches, were picked up cheaply by Lukman Meriwala. The rest of the players couldn’t get going either as Anmolpreet Singh and Ramandeep Singh took too many balls to settle down before getting out through forced shots. A major problem for Punjab occurred when their captain Mandeep Singh got injured while fielding and couldn’t bat at his usual number three position, putting a lot of o pressure on the less exposed and inexperienced middle order. It was exploited well by the Baroda bowlers especially spinner Bhargav Bhatt who choked the flow of runs in the middle overs forcing Gurkeerat Mann to take extra risks and thereby losing his wicket. Once he was out, all hopes of a Punjab revival died down and the team could manage only 135 runs in their 20 overs quota. Earlier in the evening, Punjab after winning the toss decided to bowl first and got a good start as Ninad Rathva and hero of the last game Vishnu Solanki was removed in the 9th over with only 58 runs on the board. The Punjab team was going strong until the players started dropping dollies as both Kedar Devdhar and Karthik Kakade were dropped very early in their innings on the bowling of Mayank Markande and Harpreet Brar respectively. Once the chances went begging, there was no coming for Punjab as Baroda raced to 160 in their 20 overs as both Devdhar and Kakade scored their fifties. With this win, Baroda have now made it to their fourth Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final in 12 editions where they will play Tamil Nadu, who beat Rajasthan earlier in the day to make it to consecutive finals and their third final in total.
SMAT 2021: Abhishek Sharma, Virat Singh score centuries, Padikkal unbeaten 99 to make it left-hander's day
It wouldn't be wrong to say that today was a left hander's day in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 as not one but four left-handers in Jharkhand's Virat Singh, Punjab's Abhishek Sharma, Karnataka's Devdutt Padikkal and Bengal's Shreevats Goswami powered their teams to victories by some memorable performances with the bat. Virat Singh, who, only at the age of 23, has toiled in first-class cricket for six years making his debut in 2014, made a brilliant 103 off 53 balls hitting 12 fours and three sixes at the Javadpur University Ground against Assam. On the back of his hundred and some quick runs by Sourabh Tiwary and Kumar Deobrat at the death, Jharkhand set an imposing target of 231 to chase for Assam. Assam team, even after some brilliant shots from the young gun Riyan Parag couldn’t quite get the chase going and managed just 187 runs from their 20 overs, losing the game by a huge margin of 51 runs. Brief Scores: Jharkhand 233-3 in 20.0 overs (Virat Singh- 103 not out, Pritam Das-2/40) beat Assam 182-7 in 20.0 (Riyan Parag- 67, Monu Kumar- 3/23) by 51 runs. Check Full Scores here In a Group A game at Alur, Karnataka, Punjab’s Abhishek Sharma hit a scintillating hundred, making 197 off 62 balls with the help of five fours and nine destructive sixes. He was supported equally well by Prabhsimran Singh who scored 63 off 39. Courtesy of these brilliant knocks, Punjab set a target of 201 for the Railways who crumbled under it like a p[ack of cards, getting bowled out for a meager 83 and losing the game quite badly by 117 runs. Brief Scores: Punjab 200-4 in 20.0 overs (Abhishek Sharma- 107, Dhrushant Soni- 2/29) beat Railways 83-10 in 17.1 overs (Pradeep Poojar-15, Harpreet Brar- 4/22) by 117 runs. Check Full Scores here In another Group A game, much-fancied and much talked about before the tournament, the Uttar Pradesh team suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Jammu Kashmir, their third in three matches. With this loss, the north Indian team is now out of contention of making it to the Knockout rounds. Suresh Raina tested another failure as he got out leg before wicket for a duck. Brief Scores: Uttar Pradesh 124-5 in 20.0 overs (Priyam Garg-35, Mujtaba Yousuf-3/14) lost to Jammu and Kashmir 126-2 in 15.0 overs (Abdul Samad- 54 not out, Mohsin Khan- 2/17) by eight wickets. Check Full Scores here Another shocker was in-store today as another much fancied and going pretty well side of Group C, Gujarat were rocked by Himachal Pradesh in the absence of their premium batsman Priyank Panchal. It was shocking in the sense that Gujarat, which prides itself on being an all-around heavy team wasn’t able to chase 142 at the Moti Bagh ground in Baroda. Brief Scores: Himachal Pradesh 141-5 in 20.0 overs (Rishi Dhawan 43, Axar Patel- 1/16) beat Gujarat 115-10 in 19.4 overs (Piyush Chawla-39, Vaibhav Arora- 3/16) by 26 runs. Check Full Scores here In the third game of Group A, Karnataka, who were beaten comprehensively in their last game by Punjab, beat Tripura today to compensate for it. Devdutt Padikkal was the star of the day as he hit an unbeaten 99. Brief Scores: Karnataka 167-5 in 20.0 overs (Devdutt Padikkal-99 not out, Rana Dutta- 2/41) beat Tripura 157-4 in 20.0 overs (Manisankar Murasingh 61 not out, Praveen Dubey-1/20) by 10 runs. Check Full Scores here Uttarakhand, one of the new inductees in the Indian domestic set up and played Plate Group games in Ranji Trophy in 2018 shocked another heavyweight Maharashtra which has in their ranks the likes of Kedar Jadhav, Rahul Tripathi, and Ruturaj Gaikwad. The team from the Himalayas beat Tripathi’s side convincingly by five wickets, with Jay Bista, the opener playing a brilliant knock of 69 of 51 balls to see his team through. Brief Scores: Maharashtra 141-4 in 20.0 overs (Kedar Jadhav- 67, Dikshanshu Negi- 1/16) lose to Uttarakhand 145-4 in 18.1 overs (Jay Bista-69, Shamshuzama Kazi- 1/15) by six wickets. Check Full Scores here In the two dull games of the day, expected winners in Tamil Nadu and Baroda downed Odisha and Chhattisgarh respectively. They earned the wins quite convincingly. While Baroda beat the Central Indian side by nine wickets, Tamil Nadu lost one extra while chasing 133 to finally win the game by eight wickets. Lukman Meriwala continued his brilliant form with the ball for Baroda as he returned with figures of 5/8 against the Harpreet Singh led Chhattisgarh. Brief Scores: Odisha 132-9 in 20.0 overs (Suryakant Pradhan-23, Murugan Ashwin- 3/16) lose to Tamil Nadu 136-2 in 15.1 overs (Narayan Jagadeesan- 61, Pappu Roy-1/32) by eight wickets. Check Full Scores here Brief Scores: Chhattisgarh 90-10 in 17.3 overs (Shashank Chandraker-20, Lukman Meriwala- 5/8) lose to Baroda 91-1 in 12.3 overs (Kedar Devdhar-44 not out, Sourabh Majumdar- 1/12) by nine wickets. Check Full Scores here In the only evening encounter of 14th January, home team Bengal downed Hyderabad by six wickets at the Eden Gardens. Shreevats Goswami was the hero with the willow scoring 69 not out off 48 deliveries and guiding his team home even as experienced blokes like Manoj Tiwary and skipper Anustup Majumdar went early. Apart from Goswami's batting, his wicket keeping was at another level altogether in this match as he took some sensational catches, one of it might make Subroto Paul or for that matter, even Gurpreet Singh stand up and clap. Brief Scores: Hyderabad 157-10 in 20.0 overs (Tilak Varma-50, Ishan Porel- 4/24) lose to Bengal 161-4 in 18.2 overs (Sreevats Goswami-69, T Ravi Teja- 2/28) by six wickets. Check Full Scores here