Paras and Bhatia take Himachal to easy win
Round-up of the first day of the knock-out one-day tournament for the Vijay Hazare Trophy
Cricinfo staff
02-Apr-2008
Paras Dogra's unbeaten 97 got Himachal Pradesh to 259 and then Vishal Bhatia took four wickets to bowl out Jharkhand 30 runs short of target in Visakhapatnam.
Half-centuries from Sandeep Sharma and Manoj Sharma laid the platform for Paras' 104-ball innings which included six fours and two sixes. Paras and Manvinder Bisla added 53 for the fourth wicket but the middle order didn't push home the advantage. The last six wickets fell for 65 runs. But in the end the target set by Himachal was more than enough.
Ishank Jaggi (55) led Jharkhand's chase along with Saurabh Tiwary (40) and the two added 72 together before Jaggi was caught and bowled by Sarandeep Singh. When Tiwary was caught behind off Bhatia, Jharkhand needed 138 off 131 balls to win. Bhatia then removed Amir Hashmi and Santosh Lal in two consecutive overs and Jharkhand required 102 off 83 balls with four wickets in hand. The last four only managed to add 71 more.
In the second match in Visakhapatnam, Tamil Nadu scored a six-wicket win over Madhya Pradesh after they bowled them out for 189 and chased the target with more than eight overs left.
Shadab Khan top scored for MP with 39 and his 53-run stand with Murtaza Ali was the only one of any significance in the innings. Tamil Nadu gave eight of their players a chance to bowl and C Ganapathy, R Ashwin and S Badrinath picked up two wickets each. L Balaji, returning to competitive cricket after one and a half years, took 1 for 31 in his 7.2 overs.
Badrinath hit an unbeaten 79 and added 62 with S Vidyut to take Tamil Nadu to an easy win.