Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 (II) News

Tamil Nadu’s left-arm fast bowler T. Natarajan was included in the playing XI for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final against Karnataka on Monday in Delhi. The pacer had played four games in this edition of the SMAT and scalped a total of five wickets during the course before he was rested. Natarajan had undergone a knee injury in April after which he hasn’t really been playing consistently. He was a part of the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s playing XI for a couple of matches in the second leg while wasn’t picked for the T20 World Cup that happened in UAE recently. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu bowlers and especially R Sai Kishore thoroughly dominated the Karnataka batting line up in the power play overs after picking up three wickets. Kishore had bowled three overs and picked up two wickets for 9 nine runs in the first six overs while Sanjay Yadav was the second bowler who was among the wickets. The three wickets included the dismissals of Manish Pandey and Karun Nair. Tamil Nadu defeated Hyderabad in the semi-final to make a place in the final while Karnataka beat Vidarbha to march ahead.

Tight finishes have started becoming a thing for the Karnataka T20 team after they once again won a closely fought game to enter the finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Playing the semi finals of the 2021 edition, Karnataka sneaked past the opponents to win the game by four runs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday 20 November. Defending a decent total of 177, Karnataka were put in a spot of bother after the Vidarbha batters took on the Karnataka bowling attack and added 43 runs for the first wicket in just 5 overs. The attacking game continued from the Vidarbha batsmen but they kept losing wickets in regular intervals failing to convert their starts. Vidarbha’s entire batting order were among runs, but it was the brilliance of KC Cariappa that brought Karnataka back into the game. He bowled the tough overs and dismissed two of Vidarbha’s most attacking batsmen in opener Atharva Taide (32 off 16) and Shubham Dubey (24 off 16). He gave Karnataka their first victory by breaking the opening pair in the penultimate over of the powerplay and bagged the wicket of Dubey right after the break to halt the batting side’s momentum. Even with Cariappa’s spell of four overs, things had to be capped off at the back end of the innings, and a lovely 19th over from Vyshak Vijay Kumar rose up to the occasion and mixed his lines and lengths to keep the batsmen quiet. Despite his good work he did get hit for a six and a four in that over which brought down the equation to 14 off the last over, a fairly gettable total at that point of the game. However, right arm medium pacer Vidhyadhar Patil sealed off the game picking the much needed wicket of Akshay Karnewar in the first ball of the final over. From there, it was just about keep the head on the shoulders, and Patil did that without any problems. Earlier in the day, Karnataka rode on their top three to post a huge total in a crunch game. The hitting was led by Rohan Kadam who was dropped in the very first over of the game by Virdarbha’s captain Apoorv Wadkar behind the stumps. Kadam went on to post 87 off 56 balls and was aided by Manish Pandey (54 off 42) and Abhinav Manohar who played an attacking 27 off 13 late in the innings. Darsham Nalkande was the pick among the bowlers as he picked up four wickets in four balls in the final over of the game. With that, Karnataka have now set up a reverse fixture of the 2019 final against Tamil Nadu where the former won the game in the tightest margins of one run.

Vidarbha pacer Darshan Nalkande picked up four wickets in four balls in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 against Karnataka on Saturday, 20 November. This was the first such event in this edition of SMAT, and overall the second occurrence in the Indian T20 setup. The right-arm fast bowler became only the second player to have achieved this feat in the Indian domestic T20 setup after Abhimanyu Mithun had picked up his against Haryana in 2019. Nalkande’s belligerence came in the final over of the innings when Karnataka was looking to cap off the tremendous batting effort with yet another big over. With Abhinav Manohar going ballistic in one end of the crease having scored 27 off just 12 balls, Nalkande’s over made sure that Vidarbha not only put a lid on the scoring rate but also kept Manohar out of strike for the larger part of the final over. Having conceded 27 off his first three overs, Nalkande struck back with 0, W, W, W to get his hattrick and then picked his final wicket of the game, dismissing Manohar in the very next ball, who was left frustrated on the other side. Karnataka was reduced from 175/3 to 176/7 in the final six balls of the game. At the time of writing, Vidarbha was batting aggressively in the chase and had scored 81/2 after 10 overs.

Hyderabad were no match for Tamil Nadu in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy semi-finals after the latter demolished the minnows for a hefty margin of eight wickets. Bowling first in the game, Tamil Nadu’s P Saravana Kumar was too hot to handle for the Hyderabad batters and the medium-fast bowler exploited the morning conditions and moved the ball. The Hyderabad team crumbled under tremendous pressure and were reduced to 30/4 at the end of the powerplay. The misery did not end there for the batting side as the rest of the bowling unit complemented Saravana Kumar well to bundle out Hyderabad for just 90 runs in 18.3 overs. P Saravana Kumar finished with the figures of 3.3-2-21-5. Batting second in the innings, the defending champions were in no hurry to chase the total down and took their own sweet time to chase the meagre total. Captain Vijay Shankar top-scored with an unbeaten 43 off 40 balls to anchor the innings and seal the deal in 14.2 overs. The routing means that Tamil Nadu have now reached the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for the third edition in a row and face the prospect of going up against either Karnataka or Vidarbha in a game that is scheduled to take place on 22 November.

Karnataka captain Manish Pandey had a brilliant last half an hour of play against Bengal in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy quarter-final match in Delhi when he first hit the bull’s eye to run out Akash Deep on the final ball of the innings and then hit the winning stroke for his side in the Super Over. Karnataka and Bengal were involved in a nail-biting encounter on Thursday. After batting first, Karnataka rode on some brisk batting display from Karun Nair to put 160/5 in 20 overs on the board. Karan scored an aggressive 29-ball 55 that included three sixes and four fours. Later, Bengal lost a few wickets at regular succession and were 51/3 when Writtick Chatterjee and Kaif Ahmed took on the onus on themselves and stitched a valuable partnership of 49 runs for the fourth wicket. But Kaif’s dismissal saw a couple of more wickets going down, leaving Bengal in a spot of bother at 108/6. Later, Bengal needed 20 off the last over and Ritwik Chowdhury unveiled an exciting batting display as he scored 13 in the first three deliveries while Akash Deep who had just joined him in the middle scored in the next two deliveries bringing the equation down to 1 needed off 1. Akash Deep pushed this delivery to steal a single towards the off side but a brilliant throw from Manish Pandey who was stationed inside the circle scalped his wicket to end the match in a tie and take it into the Super Over. The Bengal side then could only manage to score 5 runs as they lost both the wickets and it took Pandey just two deliveries to wrap up the game and help his side make a place in the semis.

It turned out to be a pretty eventful day in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 after Bengal and Karnataka were involved in a Super Over tie in Delhi on Thursday. While Karnataka eventually clinched a win, Tamil Nadu, Vidarbha and Hyderabad were the other three teams to march in the semi-final of the competition. Tamil Nadu vs Kerala Batting first, Kerala rode on some aggressive hitting from Vishnu Vinod who remained unbeaten at 65 off 26, a knock that included seven maximums and a couple of fours during the course to post 181/4 in 20 overs on the board. Apart from Vinod, Kunnummal also notched up a fifty for his side. In reply, Tamil Nadu were off to a decent start but it was Sai Sudharsan and Vijay Shankar who took up the responsibility and chipped in with a partnership of 57 runs for the third wicket before Sudharsan departed for a 31-ball 46. Later, Shankar was joined by Sanjay Yadav and the two batters stitched a stand of 30 runs for the fourth wicket. But it was a late surge from Shahrukh Khan who came in at number six that anchored the side to a win by 5 wickets. Shahrukh struck 19* off 9. Rajasthan vs Vidarbha Vidarbha thumped Rajasthan by 9 wickets after they chased down a small target of 85 runs in less than 15 overs. Openers Atharva Taide and Ganesh Satish provided the side with a steady start as the two put up 63 runs for the first wicket on the board. Satish departed for 28 off 33 but Taide along with Akshay Wadkar took the side home. Taide remained unbeaten at 40 off 42. Earlier, in the day, Vidarbha bowlers did a fantastic job for the team as they restricted Rajasthan to 84/8 in 20 overs. Rajasthan never really got into the groove and lost wickets at regular intervals. Nagarkoti top-scored for them with 39* off 48. Akshay Karnewar was the pick of the bowlers for Vidarbha as he returned with figures of 1/7 in 4 overs. Bengal vs Karnataka It was a thrilling match between Bengal and Karnataka after the clash went into the Super Over before Karnataka eventually stole away the win. Bengal needed 20 off the last over while chasing 161 and managed to score 19 in five deliveries before an exceptional fielding effort from Manish Pandey gave them Akash Deep’s wicket on the final ball of the match with the scores levelled. Bengal then scored only five runs after they lost both the wickets. Karnataka then took just a couple of deliveries to chase down the target. Gujarat vs Hyderabad Hyderabad clinched a comfortable win against Gujarat by 30 runs after restricting them to 128/8 while chasing 159. Gujarat didn’t really have a good start to the chase and lost wickets at regular intervals and were left tottering at 96/6 to eventually lose the game. Telukupalli Ravi Teja scalped a three-fer for 27 runs in 4 overs. Earlier, Tilak Verma unleashed a batting masterclass after he struck 75 off 50 deliveries to help his side put 158/5 in 20 overs. Tamil Nadu will now play Hyderabad and Karnataka will be up against Vidarbha in the semis scheduled to take place on Saturday in Delhi.