J&K put up a good fight but Delhi win

It was a good day for Delhi as they beat Jammu & Kashmir by six wickets in their opening match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy on Wednesday.

It was a good day for Delhi as they beat Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) by six wickets in their opening match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy on Wednesday.

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Chasing 245 set by J&K, who had opted to bat first, Mithun Manhas (70), Rajat Bhatia (59) and opener Shikhar Dhawan (57) contributed to their team’s cause as Delhi romped home in the 44th over.

J&K did show some signs of improvement from the previous seasons. Their fielding, however, still left a lot to be desired. Dhawan (57) and debutant Unmukt Chand (25) gave Delhi a sound start, thrashing Abid Nabi, who is back from the Indian Cricket League. J&K could have made things difficult for Delhi, but butter-fingered Samiullah Beigh kept letting the ball go to the boundary, making things look good for Delhi. Earlier, J&K started aggressively. Opener Ian Dev hit a boundary on the very first ball of the match, but he could not get a big score and departed for 11. His partner Imraz Thakur, however, showed patience while scoring 43 with the help of two boundaries.

Middle-order batsmen Parvez Rasool (47) and Dhruv Mahajan (47) too contributed. Delhi's bowling wasn't upto the mark. They conceded as many as 31 extras. Pradeep Sangwan gave away 10 runs as wides before picking up two crucial wickets of Rasool and Mahajan.

Rajat Bhatia was the only one who could provide consistent breakthroughs and returned with figures of three for 16 in 10 overs. Debutant Puneet Mehra too picked up two wickets for 30 runs.