UP defeat U’khand to win Under-23 State A Trophy

Lucknow: After a long gap of 18 years, Uttar Pradesh cricket team has won a domestic title in any age category by defeating Uttarakhand in the final of the Under-23 State A Trophy on Thursday. The home team won by 16 runs.
This was UP’s second national title at the senior level after the state had won the Ranji Trophy in 2005-06 season under the captaincy of Mohammed Kaif.
UP owed their victory to batter Rituraj Sharma who put up a stunning show by scoring 143 runs off 135 balls with 14 boundaries and four sixers. Skipper Sameer Rizvi also played a brilliant knock of 84 runs off 50 balls to help the team post a healthy 356/7 in 50 overs. Uttarakhand batters, too, gave a superb performance and the UP team had to battle hard for a 16-run victory at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Thursday.
Batting first, UP's wicket-keeper-batter Shoaib Siddique scored 16 runs from just 19 balls with three boundaries. He lost his wicket in the fifth over to Satyam Baliyan when UP’s score was 24. In the next over of Baliyan, Swastik Chikara (4) lost his wicket. With both openers back in the pavilion, the UP team were under tremendous pressure. But Rituraj Sharma and Aaditya Sharma had a good partnership. Aaditya smashed 47 runs with six boundaries in 47 deliveries. After the third wicket of Aaditya, Sameer Rizvi too batted brilliantly. Collective efforts by Siddharth Yadav (12) and Prashant Veer (26) propped up the UP total. For Uttarakhand, Satyam Baliyan took three wickets and Bora, Avneesh and Aryan got one each.
UP bowlers did well to restrict Uttarakhand to 340 runs at the loss of eight wickets in 50 overs. Uttarakhand's opener Yuvraj Chaudhary gave a good start as he slammed 72 runs in 55 balls with 12 boundaries and two sixers. The first wicket was lost at 94 in 14th over. Avneesh Sudha (21) was the second to fall in 15th over when the team’s score was 96. Uttarakhand had a shaky start after Yuvraj and Aditya lost their wickets. Skipper Kamal showed his class with a knock of 69 off just 56 balls, Aryan Sharma also played remarkably well adding 80 runs off 84 deliveries with nine boundaries and one six. After the fourth wicket the team shattered like a pack of cards.
UP’s Viabhav Chaudhary took three wickets and Rituraj Sharma and Prashant Veer got two wickets each.
Uttar Pradesh had reached the final of Ranji under the captaincy of Mohammad Shahid in 1977-78 at Modinagar for the first time. After 20 years, in 1997-98, the UP team once again reached the Ranji final under the captaincy of Gyanendra Pandey against Karnataka but on both the occasions they failed to bag the trophy. Finally, in 2005-2006, the UP Ranji squad, led by Mohammad Kaif, defeated Bengal in the final played at KD Singh Babu Stadium and lift the coveted trophy. After two years in 2007-08 the UP team once again reached the final but this time they failed to lift the trophy.
UP had jointly won the Vijay Hazare trophy with Tamil Nadu in 2004-05 for the first time and were runners-up in 2005-06 and 2020-21.