Vijay Hazare Trophy Round-up | Rajasthan beat Assam by 56 runs; Jharkhand win thriller against Bengal

Elite Group C

Rajasthan registered their first win of the 2018 season of the Vijay Hazare Trophy as they beat Assam, who are yet to win a match this year, by 56 runs at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. A beautiful century from Manender Singh, which included eight fours and a six en route to his 126-ball 101, set the tone for Rajasthan whose top-order batsmen struggled to get going. But some good support from Mahipal Lomror ensured that the duo put up a 63-run stand for the sixth wicket. Lomror’s 53-ball 54 took Rajasthan’s total to 217 for 7 after 50 overs.

Bengal vs Jharkhand

Brief scores: Jharkhand 264/9 in 49 overs (Anand Singh 118, Ishan Kishan 56; Writtick Chatterjee 3/46, Bodupalli Amit 1/46) beat Bengal 267/8 in 50 overs (Abhimanyu Easwaran 149, Manoj Tiwary 69; Varun Aaron 3/48, Shahbaz Nadeem 2/60) by 2 runs.

Jharkhand got off to a perfect start as openers Anand Singh and Ishan Kishan played some good shots in the opening overs of the second innings. Singh was dismissed later on for 118 while Kishan fell in the 19th over to a Writtick Chatterjee delivery. Bit part scores from middle-order batsmen took Jharkhand to a total of 264/9 from 49 overs after which the match was halted due to rain. Jharkhand were eventually ruled winners of the match by the VJD method by a margin of two runs and remained unbeaten in the tournament this year.

Jammu & Kashmir vs Services

Jammu &  Kashmir won the toss and elected to bowl first against Services. Parvez Rasool starred for the northern outfit as he picked up a fifer, but a brilliant innings from Nakul Sharma, who scored 123 from 98 deliveries ensured that Services were on track for a huge total on the scoreboard. Some good batting from skipper, Rajat Paliwal, took their total to 322 after 49 overs.

It was always an uphill battle for J&K, and having lost openers - Shubham Khajuria and Irfan Pathan early on in the innings which made matters worse for the strugglers. However, Paras Sharma put in a brave effort in the middle overs as he scored 93 off 97 deliveries to spur on his teammates. At the end of the day, J&K fell short of the target by 102 runs to give Services a well-deserved win on Monday.