Vijay Hazare Trophy | Gujarat, Services & Jharkhand register wins in Group C
Gujarat, Services, and Jharkhand managed to win their respective matches in elite group C of the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. Gujarat and Services registered easy wins against Rajasthan and Bengal respectively while Jharkhand defeated Tamil Nadu by eight runs in a close encounter.
Varun Choudhary and Arjun Sharma put up a great show with the ball by picking up three wickets each for Services to ensure an eight-wicket win against Bengal. Abhimanyu Easwaran scored 34 while Anustup Majumdar amassed 33 runs as Bengal managed only 129 before being bowled out in 38 overs.
Services chased down the target in 22 overs with Gahlaut Rahul Singh (53) and skipper Rajat Paliwal (58) scoring fifties. Services lost two early wickets inside five overs as Ashok Dinda and Ishan Porel picked up one each but the unbeaten 118-run third wicket stand took Services to an easy win.
In another group C game, Gujarat defeated Rajasthan by eight wickets. Left-arm spinner Hardik Patel starred in Gujarat's win by picking up five wickets. Rajasthan batted first and scored only 179/9 in 50 overs with Chandrapal Singh scoring 82 runs off 95 balls.
Gujarat lost their skipper Parthiv Patel for a duck in the first delivery of the innings. Kshitij Patel and Priyank Panchal then added 163 runs together for the second wicket as Gujarat cruised along nicely. Panchal got out for 84 while Patel remained unbeaten on 89 as they chased down the target quite comprehensively with 10 overs remaining. With this win, Gujarat has moved to the top of the points table.
In the only keenly-contested match of the day, Jharkhand defeated home team Tamil Nadu by eight runs. Ishan Kishan top-scored with 85 while Saurabh Tiwary (54) and Anand Singh (52) hit half-centuries as Jharkhand scored 307 in 50 overs. Varun Chakravarthi scalped three wickets for Tamil Nadu.
Chasing a big score of 308, skipper Baba Indrajith tried to lead Tamil Nadu to a win and scored 101 off 90 balls after international opener Abhinav Mukund laid the foundation with 63 runs at the top of the order. But for Jharkhand, Varun Aaron and Anukul Roy combined well to claim three wickets each and restrict Tamil Nadu for 299 in 49.5 overs. Monu Kumar and Shahbaz Nadeem picked up two and one respectively.