Vidarbha beat Karnataka by six wickets to reach VHT Final

Vidarbha beat Karnataka by six wickets in the first Semi Final of the Vijay Hazare. Vidarbha pacer Darshan Nalkande produced a brilliant bowling performance, claiming a five-wicket haul to restrict Karnataka to 280

in the first semi final in Bengaluru on Thursday. Nalkande finished with impressive figures of 5/48 from his ten overs. He was well supported by other bowlers and they restricted Karnataka to a par score on a very good surface for batting.

After they were put into bat first, Karnataka got off to a shaky start as Mayank Agarwal was the first to fall managing 9 runs. Devdutt Padikkal has a real struggle as he took 17 balls to score his first run. He was dismissed for 4 runs and Karnataka were 20/2 in 6.2 over and in all sorts of trouble. Karun Nair also had his struggle initially where he was on 1 of 20 balls at a point. But Karun accelerated well and made a crucial half century along with Shrijith. Once they were dismissed it was once again tough for Karnataka.

During the death overs they kept losing wickets as Vijaykumar Vyshak was the last batter to be dismissed, scoring 17 off 11 balls before falling to Yash Thakur. Among the other bowlers, Thakur picked up 2/64, while Nachiket Bhute returned figures of 1/46 and Yash Kadam claimed 1/39, as Vidarbha managed to keep it down to a below par score.

In reply, Vidarbha crusied through the run chase on the back of a record breaking century from Aman Mokhade who has been in fine form this season. Dhruv Shorey and Ravikumar Samarth also provided good support and Vidarbha beat Karnataka by six wickets an qualify to the Final. The grand finale will be played on Sunday and Vidarbha will be facing either Punjab or Saurashtra.