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The Times of India
The Times of India
Sport
Manuja Veerappa | TNN

Vijay Hazare: Opportunity for a fresh start for Karnataka

Flashes of individual brilliance but inadequate as a group might best describe Karnataka's senior cricket team over the past couple of seasons. The evidence is stark. They have been trophy less since the 2019-2020 season when they won the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and the Vijay Hazare trophies.

This season too, the side looked as if they would be in the reckoning for silverware after delivering in most of their league encounters in the Syed Mushtaq Ali. But then, old faults surfaced, and they faltered at the finish in a high-scoring quarterfinal against Punjab last month.

Saturday offers the underperforming Mayank Agarwal and his men an opportunity for a fresh start as they begin their Vijay Hazare campaign against Meghalaya in Kolkata.

Agarwal will look to lead from the front, first and foremost by getting back among the runs. He made a disappointing 165 runs in eight outings in the Mushtaq Ali tournament. Manish Pandey, whom Agarwal replaced as skipper this season, was the top-scorer with 247 runs from seven innings including two half centuries.

The return of R Samarth, especially in the absence of Devdutt Padikkal, will shore up the top-order. The seasoned opener was among the highest run-getters for Karnataka in the previous edition of the tournament and lends stability at the top.

However, the focus will be on rookie Nikin Jose and the big-hitting Abhinav Manohar. The 22-year-old Jose was a promising age-group player who went out of the senior team reckoning due to a poor run with the bat a couple of seasons ago, but returned to stake his place on the strength of his fine performances in the KSCA leagues. The former champions will turn to Abhinav to come good in the middle-order.

On the bowling front, barring the last-eight contest, Karnataka fared well in the T20 competition with debutant pacer Vidwath Kaverappa emerging the best bowler with 18 wickets including a five-for. With the other consistent performer Vyshak Vijaykumar out with an injury, the onus will be on the experienced Ronit More and V Koushik to marshal the pacers.

While off-spinner K Gowtham was the best tweaker, it will be interesting to see who between J Suchith and leggie Shreyas Gopal get a look in. A young Manoj Bhandage filled in as an all-rounder but didn't exactly set the stage on fire in the T20s.

On his performance, Kaverappa said, "Personally, I think I did well in my debut white-ball tournament. It could have gone better because we had the potential to lift the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. I didn't come good in the quarterfinals against Punjab and that was disappointing."

However, he insisted that the Mushtaq Ali debacle is behind him and the rest of the team and they are looking forward to making a fresh start. "As a team, we have put behind the disappointment of the quarterfinal exit in the T20 competition and are looking ahead to give our best in Vijay Hazare," Kaverappa added.

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