Delhi beat Jharkhand in close encounter to reach Vijay Hazare Trophy final

Winning the toss Delhi chose to field first which proved to be a good decision with the Jharkhand team’s innings packing up for lowly 199. Coming out to bat the Jharkhand team openers could not give their team a good start and the first wicket fell for just five runs. Thereafter the wickets kept falling at regular intervals with the first major partnership of 40 runs coming for the seventh wicket with Virat Singh and Shahbaz Nadeem. Nadeem got out for a well made 29 runs which gave Jharkhand bowlers something on the board to defend in the second innings. On the bowling front for Delhi, it was Navdeep Saini’s day who picked four wickets spending at a rate of just three runs per over while Kulwant Khejroliya and Pranshu Vijayran picked two wickets each.

The second innings was the more interesting one as it had its share of ups and downs. The openers could not give Delhi a steady start as Unmukt Chand was picked by Varun Aaron for the score of 17. But thereafter Gautam Gambhir and Dhruv Shorey steadied the Delhi innings somewhat and they looked set to chase the low target of 200 at 51 for the loss of one wicket in 9.3 overs. But it was not that easy as Gautam Gambhir went to the pavilion picked by Anand Singh for the score of 27 runs. Then the fall of wickets continues until one stage when Delhi was tottering at 149 for 8 staring at a defeat. It was at this stage when the match turned on its head and no more wickets were lost by Delhi, with Pawan Negi 39 off 49 balls and Navdeep Saini 13 off 38 balls putting up a valuable half century partnership which proved to be the difference in the eventual result of the match. The pick of the bowlers for Jharkhand were Anand Singh, Varun Aaron, and Shahbaz Nadeem who picked three, two and two wickets respectively.