Saurashtra beat Punjab by nine wickets in the second semi-final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. They will now meet Vidarbha on January 18, Sunday in the Final. It was a clinical performance from Saurashtra and they were terrific in all the facets of the game today at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on Friday. Earlier in the day Punjab were sent into bat first and their top-order fired, but a collapse by a middle-order failure and lower-order ensured they ended up with a below par total. In reply, Saurashtra made light-work of the chase as they cruised to a win.
Punjab put up 60 runs for the first wicket partnership and 109 fof second wicket as skipper Prabhsimran Singh made a terrific 87 while Anmolpreet Singh scored 100. Prabhsimran was dropped early on but he capitalised to register his fifth half-century this edition. For the second time in a row he was dismissed just short of a century. Anmolpreet scored his second century, to go with four fifties earlier in the tournament.
Punjab were 169/1 due to these two players but they collapsed to 200 for four. Then once again a partnership was stitched between Ramandeep and Anmolpreet Singh and they were 275 for four but again lost the way in end overs as they were bowled out for 291. Chetan Sakariya picked up four wickets including Anmolpreet in the 47th over, and then cleaned up Punjab’s tail-enders.
It was a below par total and Saurashtra cruised in the 292 chase with Vishvaraj stitched a partnership of 172 with captain and opener Harvik Desai. Harvik was dismissed foe 63 but Vishvaraj continued and put up an unbeaten 121 run partnership with Prerak Mankad who ended up with an unbeaten 52. Vishvaraj Jadeja was the player of the match for Saurashtra with his third century of the campaign as he remained unbeaten on 165 and helped Saurashtra beat Punjab by nine wickets. Vidarbha and Saurashtra will clash in the Final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy on Sunday.
