Vijay Hazare Trophy 2018-19: Delhi beat Jharkhand in a thriller to reach final

Delhi’s Pawan Negi held his nerves and pulled off a close win for Delhi in the 2nd semi-final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2018-19 beating Jharkhand by two wickets and two balls to spare.

Delhi’s Pawan Negi held his nerves and pulled off a close win for Delhi in the 2nd semi-final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2018-19 beating Jharkhand by two wickets and two balls to spare.

Delhi will now face Mumbai in the final to be played on Saturday.

India international Negi, who had played one T20I for India in 2016, anchored Delhi’s chase after Jharkhand had reduced their much-fancied opponents to 149/8, in defence of 199. Negi combined with No.10 batsman Navdeep Saini for an unbeaten stand of 50, scoring 39 not out. Saina remained unbeaten on 13, ably supporting his senior partner.

Delhi had lost Unmukt Chand early in the chase to Varun Aaron before Gautam Gambhir (27) and Dhruv Shorey (15) took Delhi past the 50-run mark. But Anand Singh’s double-strike – removing Gambhir and Shorey – dented Delhi.

Nitish Rana then tried to rebuild scoring 39 off 61 but Delhi kept losing wickets at the other end. Rana was the fifth wicket to fall to Shahbaz Nadeem, that opened up the game for Jharkhand.

However, Negi soaked in the pressure and guided Delhi to a hard fought victory.

Earlier, after being put into bat, Jharkhand found themselves tottering at 41/4 after pacers Kulwant Khejroliya and Saini wiped out the top-order. Only Anand Singh showed some resistance up the order scoring 36 off 80 before he was picked up by Khejroliya. Jharkhand slumped further to 85/6.

However, Virat Singh’s valiant 71 and later-order contributions from Nadeem (29) and Rahul Shukla (11) pushed Jharkhand’s total to 199.

Saini claimed 4/30 while Khejroliya returned 2/31.

Brief Scores: Delhi 200/8 (Pawan Negi 39*; Nitish Rana 39; Anand Singh 3/39) beat Jharkhand 199 (Virat Singh 71, Shahbaz Nadeem 29; Navdeep Saini 4/30) by two wickets.