After a dismal Syed Mushtaq Ali campaign, Tamil Nadu’s focus shifts to Vijay Hazare Trophy

TN players start training for Vijay Hazare Trophy after crashing out of Syed Mushtaq Ali. TN had poor campaign, finishing 5th out of 7 teams. TN batters failed to adapt to conditions, only Hari Nishaanth, Vijay Shankar, and B. Sai Sudharsan got half-centuries. Varun Chakravarthy starred with 6 scalps, TN need to get act together quickly for Vijay Hazare. TNPL has helped side be consistent in shorter formats, but lack of silverware in last two years in T20s needs to be addressed.

 After crashing out of the group stages of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for the second year in a row, a few Tamil Nadu players started training for the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Monday.

Slotted in one Group E, one of the most competitive groups, TN had a poor campaign, finishing fifth out of seven teams with three wins and two defeats (one game was washed out).

While Delhi topped the group with five victories, Uttar Pradesh (NRR: 1.816), Karnataka (1.358), Madhya Pradesh (0.181) and Tamil Nadu (-0.282) were tied on 14 points with the same number of wins and losses.

Led by Washington Sundar, Tamil Nadu started its campaign positively by defending a small target against UP (eight-run win) before beating Tripura comprehensively by eight wickets.

But the team’s campaign went off the rails against Delhi when it was bundled out for 67 while chasing 192, and the big defeat dealt a blow to its net run-rate. The team committed the cardinal sin of not playing the 20 overs as leggie Suyash Sharma ran through the line-up with a spell of four for five to bundle out the side in just 13 overs.

Had TN tried to bat out the 20 overs and reached a respectable total, there was a chance it could have salvaged its NRR.

In the next game against MP, the team failed to build on a solid start and slumped from 127 for two in the 16th over to end up with just 154 for six. In reply, MP chased down the target with seven wickets in hand.