Duleep Trophy: After Vidwath, Vyshak comes to party

Six months ago, two young Karnataka pacers raised hopes of a tandem which could fill the void left behind by the illustrious duo of R Vinay Kumar and Abhimanyu Mithun.

Vidwath and Vyshak were all of three first-class games old when they arrived at the M Chinnaswamy stadium for their Ranji Trophy match against Chhattisgarh in January earlier this year.

Vidwath picked up five for 67 in the first innings and Vyshak - Vidwath’s senior in age by a couple of years - scalped five for 59 in the second innings.

Also Read: IPL version of Impact Player rule in SMAT, Asian Games participation approved

On Friday, the duo put on an encore at the same venue, only this time they did it for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy final against North Zone.

While Kaverappa finished with figures of 5 for 28 in the first innings to restrict North to 198, Vyshak came up with a fifer in the second innings to bowl North out for 211 in 56.4 overs.

Vyshak’s figures of 5 for 76 from 15 overs meant South were chasing 215 runs for a spot in the final. And with the openers - Mayank Agarwal and Sai Sudharsan - remaining unbeaten at stumps, South were left with 194 runs to win on the last day of the four-day contest.

While it seems an easy enough task despite their tawdry show in the first innings where they scored 195 (three runs short of North), the conditions have been less than favourable for cricket with intermittent rain and bad light hampering play for significant portions of the day.

That said, each time play has been possible, seamers have had plenty to live on.

With the pitch offering plenty of movement and some low bounce, all the pacers needed to do was stick to the right lengths.

Vyshak, who is a tad slower and marginally more erratic than Vidwath, managed to put together a decent spell this time. That was all South needed to get back into the contest.

In fact, Vyshak showcased a knack for picking up wickets even during his debut first-class season. He rarely looks dangerous, at least in comparison to Vidwath, but he understands his strengths and sticks to them.

While that was particularly evident in his knuckle-ball nous with the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, deception has always been the 26-year-old’s strength.

Had it not been for that, he would not have accounted for a rampaging Prabhsimran Singh on Friday. At a time when Prabhsimran’s strike rate was picking up, meaning North’s score was building, Vyshak trapped him with a short ball and had him caught at deep square-leg.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective, and Vyshak is that bowler - heavy on the feet but light with the release.

Despite his shortcomings, and he has a few of them, he was able to pick up 31 wickets in nine Ranji Trophy games, one more than Vidwath. However, Vidwath outshone Vyshak in the Vijay Hazare Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. But Vyshak played seven games for RCB and scalped nine wickets even if expensive. Punjab Kings didn’t give Vidwath a chance.

Whatever the case, it seems like the two Karnataka pacers have enough going on to challenge each other. That could only mean great things for Karnataka cricket, possibly even Indian cricket in the future.

Brief scores: At M Chinnaswamy stadium: North Zone: 198 all out and (O/n: 51/2) 211 all out in 56.4 overs (Ankit Kalsi 29, Prabhsimran Singh 63, Ankit Kumar 26, Harshit Rana 38; Vidwath Kaverappa 2-47, Vyshak Vijaykumar 5-76) vs South Zone: 195 all out and 21 for no loss in 6.3 overs.

At Alur: West Zone: 220 all out and (O/n: 149/3) 292/9 in 92 overs (Prithvi Shaw 25, Cheteshwar Pujara 133, Suryakumar Yadav 52, Het Patel 27; Saurabh Kumar 4-29, Saransh Jain 3-56) vs Central Zone: 128 all out.