AMAN Mokhade gave himself a birthday present with fifth ton of the season and Darshan Nalkande returned with a five-wicket haul as Vidarbha finally got the monkey off their back! They had found themselves on the wrong side in all their previous meetings with domestic giants Karnataka. But, Thursday — January 15, 2026 was something different. Bowling their heart out, Vidarbha, led by Nalkande’s (5-48) superb effort, bundled out Karnataka for a below par 280 inside 50 overs and then Mokhade (138; 122b, 12x4, 2x6), on eve of his 25th birthday, got his magic wand back cracking fifth hundred. Professionals Dhruv Shorey (47; 64b, 5x4) and Ravikumar Samarth (76*; 69b, 7x4) played their part.

 

The Result: Vidarbha scored 284-4 in 46.2 overs to drub Karnataka by six wickets to make their second final of Vijay Hazare Trophy in as many attempts. Start of the chase was not a comfortable one. Vidarbha lost Atharva Taide too soon. Mokhade and Shorey respected the conditions and just hung on during that testing period. Once they got their eyes in, they opened up and just got better and better. One fine delivery gave left-arm seamer Abhilash Shetty his second wicket and the partnership was broken. Samarth, a Karnataka original, and Mokhade blossomed in each other’s company and killed the match with their gritty performance. Mokhade (total 781 runs this season) duly completed his fifth ton in style and overtook Devdutt Padikkal (725) in the process. He has a chance to better the all-time record of 830 runs that stands in N Jagadeesan’s (Tamil Nadu) name.

 

Earlier, Karnataka elected to bat first and found Vidarbha new-ball bowlers Yash Thakur and Nachiket Bhute too hot to handle. Bhute removed skipper Mayank Agarwal and then Thakur accounted for big fish Padikkal, tournament’s highest run-scorer at that stage. Nalkande gave Vidarbha another breakthrough when Karun Nair (76) and Dhruv Prabhakar (28) partnerships was taking good shape. Nair and Krishnan Shrijith (54) added 113 runs for the fourth wicket but then Nalkande got into act.