“We will take it run by run, take each ball as it comes,” the 25-year-old, who picked up four for 61, said. “We will not set ourselves any target as such. We would like to approach our batting tomorrow like we would on day one of the game, if we were batting in the first innings of the match.

“Tomorrow too, the pitch will play more or less like it did today. Maybe towards the end of the day, it will start to get a little slow, but otherwise, there will be pace and bounce and seam. As such, the first two hours will be very crucial. Patience will be the key and we have to choose the right shots to play.”

His returns were his best figures against Mumbai thus far. “It feels great to get them in the final,” said Vinay, then offered his take on why Mumbai opted to bat first. “They have a strong batting line-up, so they did the right thing from their perspective. But we did well by bowling in the right areas. There was spongy bounce because of the grass cover, and there was movement as well. We exploited it very well. Mithun and Arvind also bowled very well, Arvind was quite unlucky.”

Mumbai’s final tally owed itself to a battling 67 by wicketkeeper-batsman Vinayak Samant. “Somehow, I seem to become more determined when the team is in trouble,” Samant laughed. “The ball was swinging and bouncing, but I tried to play straight. I also batted inside my crease so that I could play the ball late. I got good support from the lower-order. Almost all of them have been scoring 30-40 runs, and they have made runs under pressure.
“I feel 233 is a good score on this pitch, especially as Karnataka will also be under a lot of pressure against our bowling attack. The first two hours will be very important. We have a good chance because the pitch still has a lot of life. We need to be disciplined with our bowling.”
DH News Service