Haryana cricket team has won the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023. In the last match of this major domestic tournament in ODI format, Haryana defeated Rajasthan by 30 runs. Here, Haryana, batting first, posted a good score of 287 runs after losing 8 wickets in the stipulated 50 overs. In reply, the Rajasthan team could only score 257 runs.
Earlier, the Rajasthan team needed just 38 runs off 29 balls to win here. They also had 4 wickets left but the team lost the last 4 wickets within 7 runs and lost the game.
In this match, Haryana captain Ashok Maneria won the toss and decided to bat first. The team got off to a poor start and opener Yuvraj (1) returned to the pavilion in the second over. Ankit Kumar supported the team by scoring 38 runs with Himanshu Rana, but for a total of 41 runs, Himanshu (10) was dismissed by Ankit Chaudhary. From here, Ankit Kumar and captain Ashok Maneria formed a partnership of 124 runs and put Haryana in a strong position.
With a total of 165 runs, Ankit Kumar retired after playing 88 innings off 91 balls. He was bowled by Ankit Chaudhary. 17 more runs were added to the scoreboard as captain Maneria (70) was also eliminated. After that, the lower order batsmen played short but quick innings. Thanks to the brilliant innings of wicketkeeper Rohit Sharma (20), Nishant Sindhu (29), Rahul Tewatia (24) and Sumit Kumar’s unbeaten 28 runs, Haryana scored 287 runs after losing 8 wickets in the stipulated 50 overs. Here for Rajasthan, Ankit Chaudhary took four wickets, Arafat Khan took two and Rahul Chahar took one wicket.
Rajasthan got off to a poor start as they reached the target of 288 runs. By the time 12 runs had been reached, the team had lost three wickets. From here, opener Abhijeet Tomar took charge of one end and scored a brilliant century. He handled the innings by adding 68 runs with Karan Lamba (20) and then formed a 121-run partnership with Kunal Singh Rathore to give Rajasthan hope of a win.
Abhijeet was eliminated after scoring 106 runs out of a total of 201. From here, Krunal took over the innings for some time and then also returned to the pavilion after scoring 79 runs. Rajasthan were under pressure after losing six wickets for 237 runs but Rahul Chahar and Kunka Ajay Singh slowly led the team towards victory. Kunka (8) was out for a total of 250 and three more wickets fell in the next seven runs. Rahul Chahar remained unbeaten after scoring 18 runs but failed to win the match for the team.
For Haryana, Harshal Patel and Sumit Kumar took three wickets each and Anshul and Rahul Tewatia took two wickets each. Sumit Kumar was adjudged the Player of the Match for his all-round game. In this match, he scored 28 runs off 16 balls and also took 3 wickets for 34 runs. The “Player of the Series” was also Sumit Kumar.