Shahrukh Khan, the namesake of Bollywood’s Baadshah, on Monday hit a last-ball six to help Tamil Nadu beat arch-rivals Karnataka and win the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. Vijay Shankar and company won by four wickets. 

“Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost,” Shahrukh Khan must have whispered to the bowler as he faced the last ball with five runs needed for a win. With the stakes high, the bowler, Prateek Jain, delivered a full-length delivery on the leg stump. Shahrukh deposited it over deep square leg as Tamil Nadu clinched their third Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title – the most by any team. The state had won the previous two titles in 2006-07 and 2020-21. They had lost to Karnataka in the 2019-20 final. 

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Shahrukh Khan finished with 33 runs off 15 balls, with the help of one boundary and three maximums, against his name. “There were “a lot of things in my mind, but I tried to keep it simple. The ball was rough and the wicket was slow, so I wanted to connect it off the middle. I was waiting to hit it over long-on, and I got the room to get it over square leg. We played a bit slow in the middle, but that’s the trend of our team – the roles are well-defined, and the top order had trust in me and Mohammed. He (Mohammed) has been a special talent so thanks to him. It has been a special thing to hit a last-ball six. I’ll remember this for a long time,” Shahrukh, the player of the match, said in the ceremony. 

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Chasing 152, Tamil Nadu openers Hari Nishanth (21) and N Jagadeeshan (41) put on 29 runs for the first wicket. While Sudharsan, Vijay Shankar (18) and Sanjay Yadav (5) couldnn’t do much, Shahrukh’s knock took the game away from Karnataka. 

In the first innings, Karnataka posted 151 runs riding on Abhinav Manohar (46) and Praveen Dubey’s (33) innings.