Vijay Hazare Trophy 2015/16, Final: Gujarat demolish Delhi to be crowned champions
Gujarat have been crowned as the 2015/16 Vijay Hazare Trophy champions after beating a star-studded Delhi by 139 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. This is Gujarat's first Vijay Hazare Trophy title as they put in all-round display to come out as convincing winners.
Delhi had beaten a consistent Himachal Pradesh in the semi-finals to reach the finals of the domestic limited-overs tournament while Gujarat beat Tamil Nadu to take on Delhi.
Parthiv Patel's brilliant hundred at the top of the innings propelled Gujarat to a respectable total of 273 in 50 overs. The wicketkeeper-captain was ably supported by Rujul Bhatt as the two batsmen put in a 149-run stand for the third wicket.
Losing two early wickets in Priyank Panchal and Bhargav Merai might have been a bit of a worry for Gujarat, but Parthiv and Bhatt stabilised the innings and scored at a healthy run rate.
Gujarat lost the two set batsmen in a matter of just seven balls to spinners Pawan Negi and Nitish Rana. After being six down for 224 in the 43rd over, it seemed like Delhi would wrap things up quickly.
However, a useful 42-run partnership between Rush Kalaria and Chirag Gandhi helped Gujarat reach 273. Gandhi was unbeaten on 44 from just 39 balls while Kalaria contritbuted with 20-ball 21.
Navdeep Saini, Suboth Bhati and Pawan Negi picked up two wickets each for Delhi. Ishant Sharma was the most economical of the bowlers as he picked up one wicket for just 39 runs in his nine overs.
In response, Delhi were never in the game from the beginnign as RP Singh ran through the Delhi top-order. He bowled out India Under-19 wicketkeeper Rishab Pant for a first ball duck with a peach of a delivery.
Delhi kept losing wickets at regular intervals as their batsmen did not seem to have any idea how to tackle the threat of RP Singh. Shikhar Dhawan, who would have hoped for a good performance ahead of the Australia limited-overs tour, disappointed as he got out cheaply for 5 runs.
Unmukt Chand put up some fight as he scored 33 runs off 48 balls, but was not able to carry on as he was bowled by Jasprit Bumrah. Captain, Gautam Gambhir's hopes of making it back to the Indian squad was dented a blow after he got out after scoring just nine runs.
Negi's swashbuckling fifty was in vain for Delhi and only denied the inevitable. Maybe if other Delhi batsmen had approached the game with a positive mindset like Negi had, maybe the result would have been different.
RP Singh and Bumrah picked up nine of Delhi's wickets between them, as the 22-year-old bowler picked up a well-deserved five-for.
Bumrah finished as the tournament's highest wicket-taker with 21 wickets in nine games. Bumrah's teammate, Axar Patel is just behind him with 19 wickets.
Brief Scores: Gujarat 273/10, 50 overs (Parthiv Patel 105, Bhatt 60; Negi 2/36, Bhati 2/43) beat Delhi 134/10, 32.3 overs (Negi 57, Chand 33; Bumrah 5/28, RP Singh 4/42) by 139 runs.