CHENNAI: As Tamil Nadu secured their maiden Col CK Nayudu Trophy title, skipper Boopathi Vaishna Kumar is a happy man. Tamil Nadu U23 team beat Maharashtra by seven wickets on the third day of the summit clash at the NPR college grounds, Natham, Dindigul on Wednesday. With this, TN have completed the double having already won the U23 one-day trophy.
Teamwork and encouragement from the U23 coaches, in particular VRS Guru Kedarnath, helped the players step up at the big stage. "I am very happy to win the trophy. It is actually two trophies in one year (limited-overs too). I am really very happy and satisfied with the team performance," Boopathi told this daily.
The interesting part of the tournament is that there is no toss and the visiting team decides whether to bat or bowl first. "This tournament we did not have toss. Against Maharashtra, we were prepared to either bat or bowl first. I told the boys to have an open mind and be prepared to bat first or bowl. The boys too were clear in their mind about the approach and thus things became easy," the captain explained.
Kiran Karthikeyan — who made a valuable 86 in the final and also notched up more than 600 runs in the tournament — was a big influence on the team's triumph. "All the batters contributed to our win in the final. Kiran's was a stand out performance. He has been doing well throughout the tournament, scoring at crucial junctures. His confidence and shot selection was spot on and made him score runs effortlessly. If you see in most of the games he paced his game well. He sets small targets like first get 30, then make it 50 and so on," said Boopathi.
Spinners Sachin Rathi and P Vignesh too bowled in tandem to trouble the Maharashtra batters and help the hosts win with a day to spare. Rathi was the top wicket-taker with 58 wickets, while Vignesh took 47 wickets. "Both of them are hard working and sincere in their approach. The hallmark of their bowling is consistency. Sachin and Vignesh have different styles of bowling. Sachin likes to bowl diagonally, is slower through the air and likes to flight the ball. Comparatively, Vignesh is a little quicker through the air. He is a little faster and extracts good bounce. But the most important thing is that they compliment each other and relish each other's success," said Boopathi.
"Right from our head coach Guru Kedarnath, assistant coach Maruthi Raghav, physio Naveen Babu and trainer Kannan took good care of us. Guru was Guru for us. He kept the atmosphere very good. He made sure that the players got along well with each other. The trainer and physio personally took care of all of us. They made sure that we had no injuries or sprains," he added.