Dhawan’s poor run continues as Delhi lose to Himachal
NADAUN (HIMACHAL PRADESH): Delhi lost their second game in a row after their star-studded batting line-up, including the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, failed to fire against Himachal Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament here on Tuesday.
Delhi lost the game by 48 runs after their batsmen could only manage 115 for nine in reply to Himachal’s 163 for five.
Dhawan (12) failed for the second game in a row and it was a third failure for skipper Gambhir (6) in as many innings.
Delhi had lost to Punjab on Monday after winning their opener against Jammu and Kashmir. They play Haryana in Dharamsala on Wednesday.
An all-round batting effort helped Himachal post a decent total.
They lost opener Prashant Chopra in the first over before Ankush Bains (23) and Paras Dogra (42) forged a 59-run stand.
What followed later was the match winning partnership between Bipul Sharma (32 not out) and Rishi Dhawan (37 not out), who smashed 70 runs off 34 balls in their sixth wicket partnership.
Delhi started their chase badly losing both Dhawan and Gambhir inside three overs.
The match was pretty much decided with Delhi reeling at 28 for five in the fifth over. Milind Kumar (31) and Pradeep Sangwan (24) tried their best to get Delhi back into the game but the damage had already been done.
In the other North Zone matches, Jammu and Kashmir upset Punjab by 26 runs, and Haryana beat Services by 16 runs.
In the Central Zone, Vidarbha produced a disciplined all-round performance to notch up a 23-run win over Railways in a Central Zone T20 game of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy at Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Tuesday.
Vidarbha’s top-order dished out a solid show with Jitesh Sharma scoring 41 off 40 balls and Ambati Rayudu and Akshay Karnewar putting together substantial partnerships for the second and third wickets.
Rayudu blasted 45 off 29 balls, with four fours and three sixes, in a 67-run stand for the second wicket, while Karnewar scored a 24-ball 42, hitting five fours and a six as Vidarbha scored 172 for six in their stipulated 20 overs after being asked to take the first strike.
Vidarbha, infact, amassed 56 off the last five overs, courtesy an unbeaten 34 off 19 balls by Apoorv Wankhade.
In reply, Railways scored 149 for 7, with wicketkeeper Mahesh Rawat hitting 41-ball 55 and Anureet Singh scoring a 17-ball unbeaten 32 at No. 9.
Karnewar and Ravi Jangid were the best bowlers as they picked two wickets each.
In another central zone match, Railways beat Uttar Pradesh by 16 runs.
AS Lamba and Puneeth Yadav blasted a matching 61-run innings to guide Rajasthan to 169-7 in 20 overs.
In reply, PSK Gupta (40) and Samarth Singh (19) gave them a good start but the rest of the batsmen failed to contribute as UP were restricted to 153-7 in 20 overs.