Ashok Menaria's Haryana on Saturday clinched their first-ever Vijay Hazare Trophy title as they defeated Rajasthan in the final by 30 runs in Rajkot. In a northern derby, the Haryana side managed to outclass the Deepak Hooda-led side in a thrilling finale at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot.
Harshal Patel and Ankit Kumar were the stars of this win along with notable contributions from other players too. Chasing a target of 289, Rajasthan were bundled out for 257 with some stellar bowling from Sumit Kumar and Harshal. Sumit did the early damage to push Rajasthan on the back foot, while Harshal took crucial wickets of centurion Abhijeet Tomar and half-centurion Kunal Singh Rathore, both of whom kept their team very much in the hunt. For his spectacular show in the final and in the overall tournament, fast-bowling all-rounder Sumit was named both Player of the Match and Player of the Series.
Rajasthan were in all sorts of trouble in the final as they were reeling at 12/3 in 5.1 overs with Sumit picking all the three wickets. It looked all but gone for Rajasthan but Abhijieet and Kunal staged a brilliant comeback on the back of a 121-run stand for the 5th wicket. Opener Abhijeet went on to smash a hundred, while Kunal scored 79. The rest of the players could not contribute much with the third-highest score being 18 by Rahul Chahar. Rahul Tewatia and Anshul Kamboj also chipped in with two wickets each to end Rajasthan's dream of the title.
Batting first, Ankit Kumar and captain Ashok Menaria led the way with 88 and 70 runs respectively. They lost opener Yuvraj Singh early but the other opener Ankit held one end up to help them in a strong batting phase. The duo notched up a stand of 124 runs before Ankit fell to Aniket Choudhary. Menaria also fell soon but Rohit Parmod Sharma, Nishant Sindhu, Rahul Tewatia and Sumit Kumar played some useful cameos to take them past 275.
From Rajasthan, Aniket Choudhary was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4/49. Arafat Khan also picked two wickets, while Rahul Chahar picked one scalp too. Haryana have won the title undefeated as they have won all the 10 games in a row.
