Tamil Nadu beat Baroda by seven wickets to win the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy on Sunday (January 31). The Tamil Nadu captain Dinesh Karthik was delighted after leading his side to the title win.
Last season, Tamil Nadu had reached the final but they lost to Karnataka and failed to secure the title. Karthik accepted that the loss had hurt them.
"You understand your cricket over a period of time, I am very keen on taking our state cricket forward and playing for the country is always on my mind," he said after the match.
"It really hurt us last year. We played really good cricket and we have been pretty consistent throughout. Just the fact that there are players like Natarajan and Washington Sundar in the Indian team... those guys were around last year playing this tournament for us. Just to see those guys go there... I am sure there'll be few more going from here," he added.
Karthik talked about the contribution Tamil Nadu has made to Indian cricket. He said the fact that they have produced some top-class players shows how good the state team is doing.
"There have been so many good performances through the season. We are able to produce cricketers to play for the country, that's always a sign of a team doing well," he added.
In the final match, left-arm spinner Manimaran Siddharth took 4 wickets for 20 runs to help Tamil Nadu beat Baroda. This was the second title win for Tamil Nadu under the captaincy of Karthik.
Fourteen years back, Tamil Nadu had won them a title win in the season 2006-07 by beating Punjab.
(With IANS Inputs)
