Classy Smaran’s stroke-filled century leads Karnataka to Vijay Hazare title | Cricket News
“Shot-ra Dei!” Shouts of joy rang out from the Karnataka dugout when Smaran Ravichandran started to unfurl boundaries to drag the team from 67 for 3 in the 15th over towards a very competitive total in the final of Vijay Hazare Trophy. In the end, his splendid 103, allied with breezy fifties from Abhinav Manohar (42-ball 79) and Krishnan Shrijith (78) propelled Karnataka to a match-winning 348. Vidarbha’s resistance came from Dhruv Shorey, who scored his third consecutive hundred, and Harsh Dubey (30-ball 63) who threatened an unlikely heist but fell well short in the end.“It’s a very interesting period for Karnataka, lot of youngsters coming in with great skill sets and mentality. Unbelievable to be part of this group and to have won the trophy. Was a game-changing partnership, we were 67/3, for them (Smaran and Shrijth) to play with that maturity and take the game deep and then for Abhinav Manohar to come in and play like that,” Karnataka’s captain Mayank Agarwal said later. It was the 21-year old left-hander Smaran, though, who …






