Delhi, weakened by the absence of experienced pros Shikhar Dhawan and Ishant Sharma, suffered their second successive defeat by four wickets in a low-scoring Group B tie of the Vijay Hazare Trophy here on Thursday. Opting to bat first, the Delhi team was bundled out for 159 runs in 45.4 overs. Karnataka pacer Vasuki Kaushik took three wickets for 23 runs in 10 overs while leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal took three wickets for 25 runs by dismissing the tail batsmen.
In response, opener Ravikumar Samarth’s 73-ball 59 and veteran Manish Pandey’s 37-ball 48 with four sixes helped Karnataka chase down the target in 30 overs. Delhi have thus lost two out of the last four matches in which they were defeated by Rajasthan in the last match. Dhawan played innings of 47 and 54 in the first two matches in preparation for the ODI series against New Zealand, before he was to join the national team.
Ishant was rested under charge management. Ishant is not playing matches continuously as his body is not able to recover from the one day gap in 50 over matches. Delhi’s batsmen struggled on a slow pitch at the Salt Lake ground, with IPL specialists Nitish Rana (30 off 43 balls) and Lalit Yadav (59 off 100 balls) making some contributions. But Delhi’s score was 66 for six at one point and it was in danger of being dismissed for less than 100 runs. But Lalit and Lakshya Thareja (15) added 44 runs for the seventh wicket. In other group matches, Jharkhand beat Rajasthan by five wickets, Assam beat Sikkim by 180 runs and Vidarbha beat Meghalaya by nine wickets.
