It will be a battle of the big-hitters when prodigiously talented openers Prithvi Shaw and Devdutt Padikkal square off against each other in a semifinal clash between domestic giants Mumbai and heavyweights Karnataka in the Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day championship here on Thursday. While Padikkal, who smashed four consecutive List A hundreds to become the first Indian to achieve the feat, is the leading run-scorer of the tournament with 673 runs, Shaw is not far behind with 589 runs in his kitty. Shaw, who will be leading Mumbai, has been on a record-breaking spree.

The diminutive right-hand batsman became the highest individual scorer in the history of the tournament when he smashed an unbeaten 227 against Puducherry in the group stage match. On Tuesday, he added another record to his name by notching up the highest score by an Indian in a chase in a List A game when he smashed an unbeaten 185 against Saurashtra in the quarterfinal, surpassing the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Both youngsters would be keen to score big and push their teams into the final come Friday. Padikkal would like to impress the national selectors once again and push his case for a berth in the ODI squad for the upcoming three-match series against England.