Vijay Hazare trophy: Some chinks amid positives for Karnataka

After what they saw in the fifth Test in Chennai on their last visit to India in 2016, England would have assumed Karun Nair was going to be around this time too, chomping at the bit. Karun wasn’t.

He was, instead, putting up sub-standard numbers for Karnataka against decent-on-a-good-day bowlers in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Seven innings worth 87 runs. This after he was relieved of captaincy to provide him the time and space to focus on the forgotten art of scoring runs.

As the domestic season comes to a close, for Karnataka at least after their semifinal exit in the Vijay Hazare trophy on Thursday, the selectors will need to reinforce their backs and take a stance on the middle-order batsman.

It must have been hard enough to replace him with R Samarth at the helm before the start of the 50-over tournament, but that decision turned out great as it shook the opener out of his indifferent form, and he ensured five massive wins in the league stage before a loss to Mumbai in the last-four stage.

Karnataka relied heavily on the openers to get them the runs in and the fears that should either Devdutt Padikkal or Samarth fail, the middle-order could come a cropper as it hardly got match-time batting in the league phase.

Though Padikkal is second on the highest-run-getters’ list with 737 from seven innings and Samarth is third with 613 runs from the same number of games (both behind Prithvi Shaw’s 754), all their runs only mean so much if batsmen following them can build on the scores.

Another piece of the puzzle they will want to address sooner than later is their medium-pace stock. The inventory reads: an Abhimanyu Mithun, who is more injury-prone now, a young Prasidh Krishna, an effective but perpetually rusty Ronit More and Vyshak Vijaykumar, who looks promising.

Prasidh and Vyshak gave a great account of themselves with the latter showing that he didn’t feel out of place on his debut List-A tournament. That’s a good sign, but with Mithun spending more and more time recovering from injuries and Ronit looking tired from all the years being unused to potential, the selectors will need to scour the scorecards and bolster their options.

Speaking of, Karnataka’s spin resource isn’t looking too forthcoming. Sure, Shreyas Gopal has found his radar again, and K Gowtham is good enough to tie batsmen down with his industrial off-spin, but we don’t have young names staking a claim in the side on pure performances.

That’s more a grassroots issue than it is a priority in the files at the department of selection. Still, they will want to look into the matter because the new-look team finally seems to have found its way out of transition. About time.

With the Ranji Trophy cancelled, the team has the time to put processes in place to bring the best out of those in the side and ensure a conveyor belt of talent for the future. A fact that wouldn’t be lost on Fazal Khaleel, the chief selector.