Opener Abhinav Mukund's cracking century helped Tamil Nadu trounce Bengal by 66 runs to win the Ranji Trophy one-day tournament at the Maharaja Bir Bikram Stadium in Agartala on Monday.
Electing to bat, Tamil Nadu hit 284 for six in 50 overs and then bowled out Bengal for 218 in 45.2 overs to win the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Mukund, who had been struggling for runs in the last few matches, came good when it really mattered smashing 118, that included 12 fours and a six in his 140-ball knock.
The last ten overs made a huge difference for Tamil Nadu as 93 runs came off them with Suresh Kumar plundering 41 runs off only 18 balls clobbering four sixes and a boundary.
"I am very happy that I came good at the right time. I got a hundred today though I was failing earlier," Mukund said.
Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan (38), Subramaniam Badrinath (30) and opener Srikkanth Anirudha (26) also contributed towards putting a stiff total on the board.
Bengal began the chase in a disastrous fashion losing opener Sreebats Goswami (9) and Debabrata Das (1) to left-armer R Suthesh with only 18 runs on the board. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin starred with the ball claiming three for 25, while Suthesh took three wickets for 55 runs in 9 overs.
Though Manoj Tiwary (76) continued with his good form, he had very little support from the other end as wickets kept tumbling around him.
After stitching together 74 runs for the third wicket with Wriddhiman Saha (31), Tiwary, who hit seven boundaries, added another 43 runs with skipper Laxmi Ratan Shukla (26, 3x4) before he was the seventh batsman to be out bowled by medium pacer Yo Mahesh.
