On this day in 2021: Tamil Nadu win SMAT trophy by beating Baroda
On January 31st, 2021 Tamil Nadu won the thirteenth edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) by beating Baroda in the final encounter by seven wickets at the then Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Dinesh Karthik-led Tamil Nadu bagged their second SMAT title in the year 2021 when the team defeated Kedar Devdhar and his men. Karthik was the skipper when Tamil Nadu won their maiden SMAT title in the inaugural season held against Punjab in 2006/07. In total, the South Indian state has won three championships with the recent one coming later in 2021.
Speaking of how the match turned out, Karthik won the toss and opted to field first. Devdhar led from the front as he opened the batting as well but couldn’t do much with a score of just 16. His opening partner Ninad Rathva bagged a single run with Vishnu Solanki their highest score who chalked up 49 runs.
M Siddharth runs through Baroda
Baroda’s middle-order was disappointing as they managed only 120/9 in their allotted 20 overs. Manimaran Siddharth with his slow left-arm orthodox bowling snared four wickets and leaked just 20 runs in four overs. Baba Aparajith, Sonu Yadav, and M Mohammed took a wicket each.
Karthik’s side was missing some big names in the form of R Ashwin, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan, Varun Chakravarthy, Murali Vijay, Sandeep Warrier and Vijay Shankar for the final due to various reasons but still managed to get over the line in style as chased down the target in 18 overs and won the encounter and the tournament by seven wickets.
Tamil Nadu’s successful chase
Tamil Nadu’s spin quartet of R Sai Kishore, Murugan Ashwin, M Siddharth and Baba Aparajith conceded just 74 runs for five wickets in 15 overs in between them. R Sai Kishore, their premier spinner, didn’t take any wicket but just went for 11 runs in his four overs spell.
Chasing such a low score, opener Hari Nishanth scored 35 as Aparajith and Shahrukh Khan remained not out on 29 and 18 respectively to win the title for their team as Tamil Nadu broke their 13 years jinx to finally lift the trophy. M Siddharth for his terrific spin bowling display grabbed the Player of the Match award.
