Dhoni takes Jharkhand into Vijay Hazare semis

TIL Desk Sports/ Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Jharkhand entered the semi-finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy after outplaying Vidarbha by six wickets at the Palam Ground, in New Delhi, on Wednesday. Choosing to bat, Vidarbha found themselves in dire straits at 87 for seven before Ravi Jangid came up with a fighting 62 to take his team to 159 for nine in 50 overs.

Jharkhand’s potent pacers Varun Aaron, Rahul Shukla tested the opposition with short-pitched stuff on a lifeless track, sharing four wickets among themselves. Later, Jharkhand openers Pratyush Singh (33) and Ishan Kishan (35) provided a solid start before Dhoni (18 not out) and Ishank Jaggi (41 not out) completed the chase in 45.1 overs.

It was a rather fitting end to the game with Dhoni hitting a straight six in the first ball off Ganesh Satish. The quarter-final attracted attention due to Dhoni’s presence but the game was not of high quality with the slow pitch making life tough for the batsmen.

Brief Scores: Maharashtra 318/6 in 50 overs (Rahul Tripathi 95, Nikhil Naik 63, Kedar Jadhav 44, Amir Gani 2/70) vs Bengal 320/6 in 49.5 overs (Shreevats Goswami 74, Anushtup Majumdar 66, Sudeep Chatterjee 60 no, Agniv Pan 47, Manoj Tiwary 40). Bengal won by 4 wickets.