Karnataka team, which has been missing every title in domestic cricket for the last 5 years, has finally ended its wait. Karnataka cricket team, captained by Mayank Agarwal, won the title of List A tournament Vijay Hazare Trophy. In the final played in Vadodara, Karnataka defeated in-form Vidarbha by 36 runs to win the trophy for the fifth time and equaled Tamil Nadu's record. At the same time, Karun Nair's 5 centuries-779 runs and Dhruv Shourie's 3 consecutive centuries in the quarter-final, semi-final and final could not make Vidarbha the champion for the first time.

In this title match of the tournament played on Saturday, January 18, both the teams had entered the field, which had registered consecutive victories from the group stage till reaching the finals. Karnataka still lost one match in the group stage but Vidarbha won every match. Team captain Karan Nair was in the best form of his career and was scoring half-centuries or centuries in every match, while openers like Dhruv Shorey and Yash Rathore were also scoring runs, but the team faced disappointment in the finals.

Remembrance's century, Manohar's dashing fifty

Karnataka batted first in this match but it did not have a good start. By the 15th over itself, all three top order batsmen including captain Mayank returned to the pavilion, while the score was only 67 runs. From here, 21 year old young batsman Ravichandran Smaran took charge and along with Krishnan Srijit made a big and fast partnership of 160 runs. Srijit was out after scoring 78 runs, after which Smaran made a partnership of 106 runs with Abhinav Manohar. Smaran scored a brilliant century and was out after scoring 101 runs, while Manohar scored 79 runs in just 42 balls and took the team to 348 runs.

Karun did not work, even Shauri's century was not enough

Vidarbha had made big scores and chased in the tournament before too, hence a strong reply was expected from them but it could not happen. The team had lost the first wicket for just 32 runs, after which captain Karun (27) came. Another excellent innings was expected from him but he was out on the team's score of 88 runs. This was only the second time in this tournament that someone got him out.

This was a big blow for Karnataka and the players coming after this kept on lasting for some time but could not play big innings. Dhruv Shourie (110), who had scored centuries in the last two consecutive matches, continued to lead the charge alone here too and scored his third consecutive century, but this too was not enough. In the end, Harsh Dubey took the team closer to the score by scoring 63 runs in just 30 balls, but with his dismissal, Vidarbha's innings ended at 312 runs and the dream of the first title was also shattered.