Saini, Negi drag Delhi to Vijay Hazare final

Navdeep Saini, Kulwant Khejroliya and Pawan Negi played a crucial role in Delhi setting up a final date with Mumbai in Vijay Hazare Trophy with a two-wicket win over Jharkhand in Bengaluru on Thursday (October 18). Set 200 on a tricky M Chinnaswamy Stadium track, Delhi huffed and puffed to the target before sealing the win in 49.3 overs.

In the 2015-16 season, Delhi saw their dream of winning the title slip away at the same venue as Parthiv Patel scored his maiden List A ton before Jasprit Bumrah and RP Singh blew Gautam Gambhir and his men away. Three years on, they had another opportunity to make amends and were almost let down by their batsmen again. At 50 for 1, Delhi looked set to cruise past the total with both Dhruv Shorey and Gambhir looking set to drive home the advantage given to them by the bowlers. The latter fell in the 10th over, caught behind, giving Anand Singh his first wicket. Gambhir batted for 48 deliveries for his 27 before he fell to the same bowler seven overs later.

From 83 for 2, Delhi were left wobbling at 84 for 4 with Himmat Singh too finding it difficult to work against the military medium pace of Anand. Nitish Rana from there on dragged the team forward with a scratchy 60-ball 39. For the most part of the first half, it seemed Jharkhand missed the trick by holding back Shahbaz Nadeem. When the 29th over started, Nadeem had only bowled just one over.

The left-arm spinner struck immediately, having Rana caught at first slip as Delhi soon slipped to 133 for 7. Saini and Negi got together with 149 on the board and frustrated Jharkhand with an unbeaten 50-run stand. With the run rate in control, both batsmen did exceptionally well to soak in the pressure of falling wickets and shut the door on any plans that Jharkhand had.

The fact that Jharkhand even had a chance was because Virat Singh and Nadeem bailed the team out of trouble with bat in hand. Jharkhand were struggling at 85 for 6 after an early burst from Khejroliya and Saini left them in a hole. Nadeem played the perfect second fiddle to Virat as they scored 55 for the seventh wicket to take the team to 140.

Once Nadeem was dismissed, Virat frustrated Delhi with a 44-run stand with Aaron for the ninth wicket. He was the last man to fall in the penultimate over as his 91-ball 71 gave the bowlers just enough to produce a thriller.

Brief scores: Jharkhand 199 in 48.5 overs (Virat Singh 71; Navdeep Saini 4-30) lost to Delhi 203/8 in 49.3 overs (Nitish Rana 39, Pawan Negi 38*; Anand Singh 3-39) by two wickets.