By Our Reporter
Shillong, Nov 27: Meghalaya lost their third Vijay Hazare Trophy one day match to Jharkhand by 92 runs in a rain-affected game at the Dr. Soni Stadium in Jaipur, on Monday.
It was the right sort of start for Meghalaya as they won the toss and chose to field first on a gloomy day, and Meghalaya started on a brilliant note with both skipper Akash Kumar Choudhary and vice captain Dippu Sangma making the Jharkhand batters skip and hop by making the ball swing.
Meghalaya suffered an early upset during with Dippu being forced to subbed with a head injury while fielding.
Jharkhand sustained the early pressure from the bowlers before the rain interrupted to put a halt to Meghalaya’s momentum.
Jharkhand largely rode on the explosive innings of opening batter Kumar Deobrat, who smashed 164 from 132 balls (with 11 fours and as many sixes) and by Indian Premier League player Saurabh Tiwary, who hit 81 from 55 deliveries, to put up a total of 339/5 in 45 overs.
Meghalaya were set a revised target of 297 in 37 overs but the innings did not get this far as a final interruption, this time for bad light, saw the match end after 30 overs, with Meghalaya on 127/3. This was 92 runs short of a second revised target of 220.
For Meghalaya Akash (2/49 in 8 overs), Rajesh Bishnoi (2/55 in 9 over) and Md Nafees Siddique (1/64 in 9) were among the wickets.
In the chase, Raj Biswa (21) and Nakul Verma (42) put on 48 for the opening wicket, with Kishan Lyngdoh (31 not out) and Jaskirat Singh Sachdeva (18 not out) being out in the middle when the match finally ended.
Meghalaya’s next match will be against Maharashtra on Wednesday.