The annual 50-over domestic tournament, aka the Vijay Hazare Trophy, has started from today. A total of nine matches were played on the first day of the tournament.
Ishan Kishan with his astounding knock of 173 runs off 94 balls for Jharkhand made headlines today.
His knock came against Madhya Pradesh. Both Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh are placed in the elite Elite Group B.
The match was played at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore. Parth Sahani, the captain of Madhya Pradesh’s team, won the toss and elected to bowl first.
Madhya Pradesh’s bowlers dominated the first ten overs of the game. At the end of the tenth over, Jharkhand had scored 47 runs with a loss of one wicket. Utkarsh Singh, the opener from Jharkhand, was dismissed in the second over of the innings. Ishan Kishan gathered 29 runs off 30 deliveries during this period.
The massacre started after the tenth over of the innings. In the next ten overs, Jharkhand’s score was 136 runs with a loss of two wickets. Ishan Kishan accumulated 62 runs from the 35 balls that he played during these ten overs.
Kushagra who came in to bat at the third position had a solid partnership with Kishan. Both Kishan and Kushagra gathered 103 runs off 98 balls. Kushagra contributed 26 runs off 45 balls in this partnership. The other 77 runs off 53 balls came from Kishan’s bat.
After Kushagra’s departure, Virat Singh joined Kishan in the middle.
Both of them accumulated 117 runs off 54 balls. During this partnership, Kishan also managed to score 173 runs off 94 balls. His innings comprised 19 fours and 11 sixes.
It was also his highest List A score. His innings progressed at an extraordinary rate. The first 29 runs came off 30 balls with a strike rate of 96.7. In the next 35 balls, he made 62 runs with a strike rate of 177.1. In the next 29 deliveries, he went berserk. He made 82 runs off these deliveries with a strike rate of more than 280.
After his departure, the other batsmen from Jharkhand made sure that they capitalize on the momentum gained. Virat Singh made 68 runs off 49 deliveries. He hit 5 fours and 3 sixes during his innings. Sumit Kumar made a crucial 52 off 58 balls and hit 5 fours. The main man after Kishan was Anukul Roy.
Roy came in to bat after Virat Singh was dismissed in the 36th over of the innings. Jharkhand’s score at that time was 294 with a loss of 4 wickets. He along with Sumit Kumar first gathered 117 runs off 67 deliveries. He was run out at the end of the 49th over. He scored 72 runs off 39 balls. Roy hit 3 fours and 7 sixes during his innings. When he was dismissed Jharkhand’s score was 415 runs. Jharkhand’s innings ended on 422 runs with a loss of 9 wickets.
Madhya Pradesh had a humongous target of 423 runs in front of them. After Jharkhand’s batsmen, it was time for their bowlers to rub salt into the fresh wound. They made sure to erase Madhya Pradesh out of the game.
Varun Aaron opened the bowling for Jharkhand along with Rahul Shukla. Shukla had the first breakthrough on the third ball of his first over. He dismissed Puneet Datey for 4 runs.
The first wicket opened the floodgates for Madhya Pradesh. Half of their side was back in the dugout for 21 runs. Varun Aaron dismissed the next four batsmen.
Abhishek Bhandari, the wicket-keeper of Madhya Pradesh along with Venkatesh Iyer, tried his best to handle the innings. Iyer was dismissed when the team’s total reached 75 runs. Bhandari was the second-last batsman to be dismissed. He was dismissed by Aaron in the 18th over of the innings. With Bhandari’s wicket, Aaron completed his fifer. On the fourth delivery of the same over, Aaron also managed to remove the last batsman of Madhya Pradesh.
Madhya Pradesh was all out for 98 runs. Aaron took 6 wickets and gave away just 37 runs. Jharkhand won the game by a massive margin of 324 runs.
Jharkhand got four points from this game along with a net run rate of more than 6.8.
Ishan Kishan was excellent behind the stump as well. He took seven catches. He recorded the most number of catches by an Indian wicket-keeper in a List A match.
