Tamil Nadu book Wills Trophy berth

Tamil Nadu won the Subbaiah Pillai Trophy for zonal one-day supremacy after an astonishing batting display against Goa at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai yesterday. Chasing a target of 136 and mindful of the need to beef up their net run rate in the event of a Karnataka victory in a parallel match at Hyderabad, the TN batsmen went berserk, knocking up the runs in 66 balls and 61 minutes. As it turned out Karnataka lost to Hyderabad leaving TN as clear winners. With this title triumph Tamil Nadu have also qualified for next season's Wills Trophy.

After being put in, Goa could only muster a total of 135 in 41.4 overs. J Gokulakrishna with 4-23 from 9 overs and Sridharan Sriram with 3-9 from 3.4 overs were the bogeymen for Goa. In the TN reply S Mahesh, who opened both the bowling and batting, lashed a furious 69 from 29 balls (8 fours, 5 sixes). Madanagopal (19) and Sharath (12) were at the crease when the end came with five wickets to spare.