Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018: Khejroliya, Pant Shine In Delhi's Big Win Over Tamil Nadu

Delhi opened the Super League phase of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with a comfortable win over Tamil Nadu as the Pradeep Sangwan led side chased down a total of 146 with eight wickets and 28 balls in hand.

After winning the toss, Delhi opted to bowl first but leaked few runs at the start. In the third over, Sangwan surprised Washington Sundar with his bounce to dismiss him, and within a matter of three balls, TN lost another wicket, which soon stopped the flow of runs. TN lost one more wicket in the form of Bharath Shankar to go down to a score of 37/3.

Skipper, Vijay Shankar then took charge along with Baba Aparajith and ensured that they cross the 100 run mark. Shankar also scored his signature sixes and cleared the ropes for a total of three times. Both the batsmen shared 92 runs for the fourth wicket to take TN to 129.

In the last 19 balls, the Vijay Shankar led side could not do much and scored just 16 runs and also lost three more wickets. Kulwant Khejroliya was the star with the ball for Delhi as he bowled a spell of 4-0-26-4.

Comeback man Gautam Gambhir opened the innings with Rishabh Pant and did a good job by sharing 43 runs in 5.3 overs for the first wicket. However, Gambhir seemed to be in some difficulty and also lost his wicket in an odd way when he tried to play a sweep off Washington Sundar, but it took an edge of his bat which was caught by Athisayaraj Davidson.

Dhruv Shorey was promoted to bat at number three and took a sidelined seat by allowing Rishabh to score more. The latter scored freewheeling runs and scored 58 runs before getting dismissed. His innings included seven fours and three sixes.

Nitish Rana, his successor, hit the right notes from the start and smashed 34 runs off 14 balls to take Delhi past Tamil Nadu’s score to post the first win of Super League.

Delhi still had eight wickets and more than four overs to spare before they posted a win.

Delhi will now face Baroda in their next game tomorrow (January 22) while Tamil Nadu will be up against Uttar Pradesh after a day’s break.

Brief score: Delhi 146/2 (Rishabh Pant 58, Nitish Rana 34*; Washington Sundar 2-32) defeat Tamil Nadu 145/7 (Vijay Shankar 57*, Baba Aparajith 45; Kulwant Khejroliya 4-26) by eight wickets.

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