BENGALURU: As Karnataka, who needed 153 runs to beat Railways in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy contest in Alur, lost their sixth wicket in the form of Shreyas Gopal, they were in search of a late hero on Saturday. They had to get 56 in the last six and that is when 33-year-old Aniruddha Joshi raised his hand to help them cross the finishing line in a dramatic finish. With the defending champions in need of nine runs from the final over, Joshi (64 not out) slammed two sixes to seal a two-wicket win with two balls to spare.
Though Joshi managed to bring his A game under pressure, the contest once again highlighted how the trio of KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and Manish Pandey are missed. Railways total of 152/5 should not have been daunting as Karnataka batsmen made them appear to be.
In the absence of big players one thought Karun Nair, who is the captain, would shoulder responsibility, he has faltered big time, scoring 60 in four matches including 15 against Railways. Their batsmen did convert their decent starts into a meaningful score once again with Rohan Kadam and Devdutt Padikkal managing 14 and 37 respectively on the day.
And with KL Shrijith and Pravin Dubey getting out for golden ducks, followed by Gopal in the 14th over, the situation looked quite desperate as they were staring down the barrel at 93/6. Joshi decided to take things into his own hands from there on, dealing in boundaries with his attacking strokeplay to ensure Karnataka registered their third win of the season. His 40-ball 64 comprised three fours and four sixes.
Karnataka should consider themselves lucky that Railways did not post a huge score on the board else the result might have been different. After deciding to bat first, Railways suffered a poor start with Mrunal Devdhar getting out in the second over for three runs with Koushik V taking a wicket in his first over.
Pratham Singh (41) and Shivam Chaudhary (48) were involved in a good second-wicket partnership of 94 runs. The duo laid the foundation for a good score, but they lost wickets at regular intervals in the middle overs as Gopal scalped two wickets. But, a quickfire 16-ball 33 from Harsh Tyagi took them to 152/5, which almost proved to be enough. Prasidh Krishna and Shreyas Gopal scalped two wickets each for Karnataka.
Brief Scores: Railways: 152/5 in 20 overs [Pratham Singh 41, Shivam Chaudhary 48, Harsh Tyagi 33 n.o, Prasidh M Krishna 2/25, Shreyas Gopal 2/27] lost to Karnataka: 158/8 in 20 overs [Devdutt Padikkal 37, Anirudha Joshi 64 n.o, Pradeep Poojar 3/19, Dhrushant H Soni 3/28] by 2 wickets.