A blistering 68-ball hundred by Nitish Rana stunned defending champions Vidarbha by a 6-wicket win on the final day at Feroz Shah Kotla ground. It was Vidarbha’s first outright defeat since November 2016 when they lost against Maharashtra in Kolkata.
It was quite a rare occasion when in the middle of the season a team made a bold declaration to go for outright result and rarer when the opposition responded to it positively.
Till yesterday this match was mostly in news for Ishant Sharma’s injury. In a low scoring affair in first innings, Vidarbha secured 16-run lead but as the pitch flattened out and Delhi was already without Ishant Sharma, Vidarbha decided to go for the glory. A 92-ball hundred by Ganesh Satish and unbeaten fifty by Akshay Wadkar took Vidarbha’s total to 330/3 which they thought were enough to take a chance with bowling attack consisting Umesh Yadav.
Chasing the target of 347 in 92 overs, Delhi openers Kunal Chandela and Hiten Dalal gave them a solid opening stand to add 163 runs. Though neither of them could convert it to a hundred, that put Vidarbha in totally defensive mode. Nitish Rana seized this opportunity and took the counter-attacking approach to complete his fifty in just 26 balls. He added 118 runs in 89 balls with skipper Dhruv Shorey.
Delhi lost two quick wickets in form of Shorey and Lalit Yadav but that didn’t stop Nitish Rana even a bit. He was given a life when Aditya Thakare couldn’t hold on a chance at long-off. At the end when 5 runs were needed, he slog-swept Akshay Wakhare to complete his 6th First-Class hundred and took Delhi home.
This win gave Delhi 6 points which took their tally to 16 points in 6 matches while Vidarbha have 17 points. Delhi will take on Bengal in the next round while Vidarbha will face Gujarat.
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