Vijay Hazare Trophy | Nitish Rana ton in vain as Faiz Fazal 92 does the job for Vidarbha
Faiz Fazal continued his rich form by smashing a stoic 92 for Vidarbha to help the side secure a five-wicket win over Delhi in Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation Ground in Vadodara. For Delhi, Nitish Rana scored an unbeaten century before returning to pick three wickets through his bowling.
Brief Scores: Delhi 207-8 (50) (Nitish Rana 100*, Anuj Rawat 54; Yash Thakur 2/27) lost to Vidarbha 208-5 (48.2) ( Faiz Fazal 92, Wasim Jaffer 42; Nitish Rana 3/36) by five wickets
After deciding to bowl first, Vidarbha had a gargantuan task of getting rid of strong Delhi top-order which they did effectively as Yash Thakur sent both Shikhar Dhawan and Hiten Dalal back to the hut with Delhi scoreboard reading 5. In-form skipper Dhruv Shorey had the job of arresting the collapse but by catching him plumb in front, Akshay Karnewar opened the floodgates, or so he thought.
India U-19 fame Anuj Rawat joined forces with Nitish Rana to forge a solid 79-run partnership and even after Rawat’s dismissal, Lalit Yadav kept one end up for some time to help Rana take the innings forward. Aditya Sarwate, Sanjay Raghunath, Yash Thakur picked up two wickets each as Delhi ended up with 207/8 in 50 overs.
With Fazal already being fit, which he showed by scoring a 72 against Punjab, Vidarbha had a little reason to choke and they didn’t. Even though he lost the captaincy to Wasim Jaffer, Fazal again showed what he has got by partnering with Jaffer, who scored a 47-ball 42. Akshay Wadkar chipped in with a timely contribution of 34 runs for Vidarbha.
Even though Rana complemented the underperforming Simarjeet Singh and Lalit Yadav, Pawan Negi was way too expensive for Delhi to save the game. Akshay Karnewar and Rushabh Rathod hit 18 and 12 respectively to help Vidarbha sore ahead and ended up on the winning side by five wickets. It was Vidarbha’s second win from seven matches, but with three matches ending up as No results, they have 14 points next to their name so far.
