Nagpur: Exploiting his rich vein of form, Karun Nair slammed his fourth successive hundred, fifth in total of this edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, as Vidarbha outclassed Rajasthan by nine wickets to move into the semi-finals of the premier domestic 50-over tournament in Vododara on Sunday.
Vidarbha will face Maharashtra in the semi-final on Thursday while the other last four match will see Haryana, a two-wicket winner over Gujarat, facing Karnataka on Wednesday.
Gold Rate
Monday 27 Jan. 2025
However, the day’s protagonist was Karun, who continued his red-hot form in this iteration of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, striking his fifth hundred overall — a whirlwind unbeaten 82-ball 122 (13×4, 5×6) — which was also his fourth successive ton in the last five innings. He is now on par with former Karnataka team-mate Devdutt Padikkal, former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara and ex-South African batter Alviro Petersen as batters with four successive List A hundreds.
The record for most consecutive List A hundreds currently stands in the name of Tamil Nadu’s Narayan Jagadeesan, who smashed five centuries on the trot in the 2022-23 edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
The 33-year-old Karun now has 664 runs from eight matches at an astonishing average of 664. Over the last 6 innings in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, a domestic 50-over competition, Nair has aggregated scores of 112*, 44*, 163*, 111*, 112*, 122*. He is yet to be dismissed in this edition of the tournament, having accumulated over 600 runs without getting out.
In the day’s match, Karun had able support from fellow centurion and man of the match Dhruv Shorey (118 not out, 131b, 10×4, 3×6) as they added 200 runs for the unbroken second wicket in just over 29 overs, propelling Vidarbha past the target of 291 in 43.3 overs. Coming in at one down, Karun just had to build on the splendid 92-run start to the chase given by Shorey and Yash Rathod (39) and he did that job to perfection.
Earlier, several Rajasthan batters made starts but none of them actually converted them into a bigger score. Kartik Sharma (62, 61b, 2×4, 4×6) and Shubham Garhwal (59, 59b, 5×4, 4×6) were the main rungetters and then there were scattered scores such as a 31 (14b) by Deepak Chahar, a 45 (49b) by Deepak Hooda and a 32 (45b) by skipper Mahipal Lomror. Medium pacer YashThakur (4-39) helped Vidarbha restrict their rivals to a sub-300 total.
Nair’s case remains one of the most interesting in Indian cricket. He scored the famous 303 against England in Chennai, yet couldn’t become a central figure in India’s plans for the longest format. However, with an exemplary performance in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign, Nair’s astonishing numbers have forced the Ajit Agarkar-led national selection committee to stand up and take notice.
