Jaipur: Young right-arm speedster Ashok Sharma, playing his first Vijay Hazare Trophy season, achieved career-best figures of 5 for 58 as Rajasthan registered a thrilling 10-run victory against star-studded Tamil Nadu in Ahmedabad on Saturday. It was Rajasthan’s first win in the tournament after four straight defeats.Experienced Deepak Hooda (70 off 69 balls) helped Rajasthan to 225 in 46.5 overs with skipper Manav Suthar chipping in with a laboured 93-ball 43. India mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy (4/25) and pacer Gurjapneet Singh (2/44) made scoring difficult for Rajasthan.But things started looking equally dismal for Karnataka once they came out to bat with only their top-three — Athish SR (54), skipper Narayan Jagadeesan (71) and Washington Sundar (36) — playing with authority. The rest fell like ninepins with six of them departing for single-digit scores.Left-arm spinner Suthar gave pacer Ashok able support by snapping up three wickets. Hooda and Khaleel Ahmed chipped in with a wicket each.Ashok was adjudged player-of-the-match for his career-best performance.Brief ScoresRajasthan 225 in 46.5 overs (Deepak Hooda 70, Manav Suthar 43, Aditya Rathore 34, RS Golada 28, AM Singh 19*; Varun Chakravarthy 4-25, Gurjapneet Singh 2-44, Sonu Yadav 2-38) beat Tamil Nadu 215 in 41.4 overs (Narayan Jagadeesan 74, Athish SR 54, Washington Sundar 36; Ashok Sharma 5-58, Manav Suthar 3-44, Deepak Hooda 1-3, Khaleel Ahmed 1-46) by 10 runs.
