J&K senior cricket team suffered its fourth consecutive defeat in ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy one day tournament as they went down to Jharkhandh by 73 runs at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Thursday.
Under criticism on the composition of the playing-XI in the previous matches, J&K made one change as they brought in experienced batsman Ian Dev Singh in place of youngster Shubham Pundir. The move was aimed at strengthening the batting line that had failed miserably in the previous games.
Going into match as underdogs, J&K won the toss and elected to bowl.
Batting first, Jarkhandh posted 221 runs on the board in the allotted 50 overs losing 8 wickets on the way.
Chasing a gettable target with required run rate of 4.44, batting collapse in the middle-order let the team down yet again, as J&K got all out for 148 runs in 42.2 overs, losing the match by a huge margin. However, an unbeaten knock of 53 runs by tail-ender Mohammad Mudasir proved a face-saving act. Batting at number 11, Mudasir scored the runs in 28 balls including 6 sixes and 2 fours striking at the rate of 189.28.
It was another bad day for the team as opener AO Banday fell in the first over of the inning at individual and the team score of 4. Irfan Pathan having been promoted up the order as opener was joined by Shubham Khajuria to stabilise the inning. The duo played cautiously and took the score to 39 runs in 11 overs before Jharkhand introduced spinner Shahbaz Nadeem into the attack. Inform Nadeem struck twice to claim the wickets of both Pathan and Khajuria. Ian Dev Singh playing his first match of the tournament also fell to Nadeem on the individual score of 9 from 24 bowls.
Captain of the J&K team Parvez Rasool having completely failed as a batsman during the first three matches of the tournament scoring only 4, 15 and 3 runs against Bengal, Tripura and Haryana respectively, performed the worst on the day – scoring a duck. Parvez was clean bowled by AS Roy in the 15th over of the inning and further the wickets kept falling on regular basis. With 9 down for paltry 76 runs, it was the last pair of Mudasir and Aamir Aziz that ensured over 100 runs on the board for J&K. The pair put on an entertaining 72-run partnership for the last wicket before Aamir at 17 runs fell leg-before-wicket to Anand Singh, putting a stamp on another dismal performance by the team.
Earlier, Jharkhand got off to a bad start losing openers Ishan Kishan and Anand Singh with 14 runs on the board. J&K bowlers continued to bowl well and reduced them to 88 for the loss of six wickets in the 29th over of the innings. Waseem Raza bowled very well to pick three important wickets, creating chance for the team to bowl Jarkhand all-out below 100 runs.
However, it was Jarkhandh tail-ender Anukul Roy who played the knock of his life as he led his team out of trouble to post 221 runs on board for the loss of eight wickets in 50 overs. Anukul scored an unbeaten 96 runs off 72 balls that included seven sixes and 4 boundaries. For J&K Waseem Raza was pick of bowlers taking three wickets while as Irfan Pathan, Mohammad Mudhasir and Amir Aziz took one each. Parvez Rasool went wicket-less in spell of ten overs.
Having gone down to Bengal, Tripura and Haryana earlier in the tournament, the loss to Jarkhandh is the fourth consecutive loss for J&K in the event. Moreover, the team is yet to add a single point to its credit on the points table.
To draw a conclusion, it is the J&K batting that has turned out to be a complete failure during the tournament, leading to four consecutive losses.
BRIEF SCORES:
Jharkhandh: 221/8 (Anukul 96*, Raza 3-wkts, Pathan 1-wkt)
