Vijay Hazare Trophy: Shikhar Dhawan falls for duck in Delhi’s 6-wicket win over Jharkhand

CHANDIGARH: Already out of favour from the shortest format, opener Shikhar Dhawan further weakened his case for inclusion in the ODI team after returning with a three-ball duck in Delhi’s six-wicket win over Jharkhand in their Vijay Hazare Trophy Group C opener at the IS Bindra PCA Stadium in Mohali on Wednesday.
Dhawan, 36, was left out of the World T20 squad and the subsequent three-match T20I series against New Zealand, with the selectors insisting that the southpaw was “rested”.However, his return to competitive cricket was marred by a short-pitched delivery from Varun Aaron on the final ball of the very first over that left Delhi 1/1 in their chase of 264.
Delhi, however, recovered from the early loss and got themselves back into the game, thanks to a 127-run second wicket partnership between Dhruv Shorey (64 off 82 balls; 4X7) and centurion Himmat Saini (113 not out off 124 balls; 4X11, 1X6).
With the duo going all guns blazing, left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem applied the brakes with the wicket of Dhruv. Nadeem also played a hand in removing new man Jonty Sidhu, who fell inches shy of his crease, after scoring 8 runs.
Thereafter, Lalit Yadav came up with a useful 24, but it was the 81-run unbroken stand between Himmat and Kshitiz Sharma (43 not out) that comfortably took Delhi home with three overs to spare.
Earlier, Jharkhand rode on half centuries from Virat Singh (79 off 104; 4X6) and Kaushal Singh (69 off 86; 4X7) to post a competitive 263 for 8 after being put in to bat on a pitch that assisted the pacers.
Delhi skipper Pradeep Sangwan took three wickets for 46 runs.
In other matches of the group, Saurashtra beat Uttar Pradesh by 32 runs at the Sector 16 Stadium in Chandigarh while Hyderabad defeated Haryana by five wickets in the third game of the group in Mullanpur.
Brief Scores:
Jharkhand: 263/8 (Virat Singh 79, Kaushal Singh 69, Pradeep Sangwan 3/46) lose to Delhi: 264/4 in 47 overs (Himmat Singh 113, Dhruv Shorey 64, Shikhar Dhawan 0)
Saurashtra: 223 (Jaydev Unadkat 33, Shivam Mavi 4/26) beat UP: 191 (Rinku Sigh 65, Chirag Jani 5/35)
Haryana: 162 (Yashu Sharma 68, Tilak Verma 4/23) lose to Hyderabad: 167/5 (Tanmay Agarwal 77)