Vijay Hazare Trophy | Chhattisgarh, Goa and Kerala open their accounts in Elite Group A

The first game saw Chhattisgarh clash with Andhra in what looked to be a promising clash, with the former having come off a historic victory against Mumbai. Having won the toss, Andhra sent their opposition to bat first. The openers gave Chhattisgarh a good start as they accumulated sixty runs in the first powerplay, with the team consistently building good partnerships early on. Half-centuries by Shashank Chandrakar and Ashutosh Singh drove them forward, but the middle-order couldn’t add to the starts they were getting as they suffered a late collapse only for a quickfire 44 off 25 balls by Shashank Singh helping them put up 268/9 on the board, with Prithvi Raj picking three wickets. Coming into bat, almost each batsman got going and set their eye in before ultimately throwing their wicket away. As many as five Andhra batsmen crossed the 20 run mark and yet none of them scored half-century as regular wickets meant Chhattisgarh always looked in control of the match. With a steep required run rate, a late flurry from Sasikanth wasn’t enough as they were bowled out for 56 runs short of the target, with Shashank Singh the pick of the bowlers with three scalps.

In the match between Goa and Jharkhand, the latter decided to field first only for the move to backfire. Even though they managed to reduce the batting team to 73/3, a faster than run-a-ball 117 from Aditya Kaushik took the innings away from them. Rahul Shukla, however, ran rampant with the ball picking up six scalps, only for keeper Chidambaram Gautam to salvage the day with a solid forty to help them post 266/8. The Goa bowlers started out well taking early wickets to have Jharkhand reeling at 66/3, before well-composed knocks from Ishan Kishan and Virat Singh brought stability to the innings with a 77 run partnership. However, even after Anukul Roy hit a pacy 40, the wickets kept on falling as Darshan Misal’s four scalps had Jharkhand bowled out for 224.