Chand powers Delhi to Vijay Hazare Trophy

Visakhapatnam, March 3 (IANS) Delhi coasted to a comfortable 75-run win over Assam in the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy to be crowned the domestic one-day champions.

A brilliant century by opener Unmukt Chand helped Delhi set up the game against Assam at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium Sunday.

After being asked to bat first, Chand was involved in two significant partnerships en route to his 116 to help set a formidable target of 290/9 in 50 overs.

After a 97-run opening stand with Punit Bisht (52), he added 115 runs with Jagrit Anand for the third wicket. After Anand was castled two runs short of his half-century by A.K. Das, the rest of the line-up fell in a heap with the exception of Milind Kumar who remained not out on 31.

Chasing 291, after Pritam Debnat was run out with just 18 runs on the board, Assam kept on losing wickets at regular intervals.

Even a valiant 87 by Dheeraj Jadhav could not salvage the innings as Assam failed to string together sizeable partnerships. Rajat Bhatia picked up three wickets while Parvinder Awana and Varun Sood claimed two wickets each and Sumit Narwal took one to help bowl Assam out for 215 in 44.2 overs.

IANS 2013-03-03 19:26:06