Vijay Hazare Trophy, 2018, Round-Up: Manoj Tiwary shines as rain plays spoilsport
The rain Gods did not show any mercy as all the three matches which were supposed to take place in Chennai were abandoned due to the inclement weather.
The only match which began was the one between Haryana and Bengal, which took place at the M Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Due to the rain, the match was reduced to 21 overs per side. Haryana opted to field first and did a decent job of restricting Bengal to 140 in their 20 overs.
It was the captain, Manoj Tiwary, who led from the front as he scored a quickfire knock of 60 in just 43 deliveries to help take his side to 140. Vivek Singh, who opened the batting, contributed with the bat as well, scoring 30 off 23.
Apart from these two, only one other batsmen managed to cross double figures. In the bowling department for Haryana, Mohit Sharma, Harshal Patel, and Arun Chaprana picked up two wickets each while Jayant Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal picked up one wicket each.
In response, the Bengal bowlers did not allow any of the Haryana batsmen to settle down and kept picking up wickets at regular intervals. They were well on their way to victory, however, rain played spoilsport with Haryana at 69-6 after 14 overs. This led to the match being abandoned and both sides sharing the points.
The other two matches, between Jharkhand and Tripura at the TI Cycles Ground in Murugappa and between Assam and Services at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College Ground in Chennai were washed out. Assam are yet to win a single match in the competition and are languishing at the bottom of the table. On the other hand, Jharkhand are on top of the table with five wins out of seven games and Tripura are in the lower half, with 2 wins.