Skipper Karan Sharma fails again; UP win in Hazare Trophy
LUCKNOW: For yet another time, skipper Karan Sharma failed to click with willow. After his sixth match in a row in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Delhi’s Sharma has so far scored 50 runs, including his best 13 against Manipur on Monday after Uttar Pradesh notched up a facile eight wickets win, at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.
Despite hitting two half-centuries in the last month’s Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, Sharma kept struggling in the latter half of the event. His struggle continued even in the Hazare Trophy this month as before Monday’s knock of 13-run against Manipur, he had just 37 runs in five matches, which included six against Tripura, eight against Himachal Pradesh, nine against Gujarat, two against Hyderabad and 12 against Chandigarh. Sharma’s consistent failure is a big worry and this could lead the exit of former joint winners Uttar Pradesh from the knockout race as there is no other option left for the side except winning their last game against table topper Saurashtra (20 pts) on Wednesday.
Sharma saved his day by bagging two wickets after pacers Ankit Rajpoot (3/23) and Kartik Tyagi (2/14) helped the side skittle out Manipur for paltry 132 in 32.3 overs. Priyojit K (44, 49b, 3x4, 2x6), Kishan Singha (25, 32b, 2x4) and Nitesh (23, 26b, 3x4) scored for Manipur. Uttar Pradesh in reply romped home in 19.2 overs, losing just two wickets. Delhi-boy Madhav Kushik., who had a century in the last game against Chandigarh, scored 54-ball unbeaten 75, which contained 14 hits to the fence, whereas Priyam Garg took 41 balls to score unbeaten 31, which contained four boundaries. The two added unbeaten 91-run for the thirdwicket. For Manipur, Jotin Pheiroijam took both UP wickets. Earlier, Kanpur’s Rajpoot ripped through Manipur’s innings, sending both the openers Karanjit Y and Narsingh Yadav in successive overs. They were reduced to 6/36 before being shot out for 132. Aaquib Khan, Saurabh Kumar and Jasmer Dhankhar shared three wickets between them.
JUREL’S TON GOES IN VAIN
Uttar Pradesh’s Dhruv Chand Jurel struck a fine century (101, 122b, 9x4, 2x6) but side lost to Delhi by two wickets in their second league match of the Men’s Under-25 State A Trophy, at the Gurugram Cricket Ground in Haryana on Monday.
Uttar Pradesh scored 233/7 while batting first after winning the toss, and Delhi, in reply, romped home with two balls to spare at the loss of eight wickets.
SELECTED
As many as five cricketers from Uttar Pradesh, including Archana Devi (Kanpur), Falak Naaz (Prayagraj), Sonam Yadav (Firozabad), Shikha Sahlot (Ghaziabad) and Parshvi Chopra (GB Nagar) have been selected in India under-19 squad for the upcoming five-match T20 home series against New Zealand, starting November 27 at Mumbai.