Vijay Hazare Trophy: Jharkhand beats Services at ease

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Saurabh Tiwary remained not out on 102 against Services on Tuesday. Image Source: XtraTime

Kalyani: More than a thousand Dhoni fans who came to watch some power-hitting by MS Dhoni, returned home with disappointment. Jharkhand won the match comfortably by seven-wicket over Services to seal their second victory in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Jharkhand chased a big total of 277 runs without the the help of their captain ‘Dhoni’ as Saurabh Tiwary (102*) and Ishank Jaggi (116*) shared an unbeaten 214-run partnership which helped to win the match with 22 balls left to play.

He may not have played a role with the bat but Dhoni’s tips during the drinks break played a big role in their win, Jaggi later revealed.

“Mahi bhai advised us to play in a calm and composed manner. He told us, ‘If you play with patience runs will come. It’s about staying there and finish the game”,” Jaggi said.

He further added,” It doesn’t matter to me who is scoring. Me, Dhoni Bhai, Saurabh anybody can score runs, but the important thing for us is winning the match for our team. The wicket was far better than Eden Gardens and I am happy that everybody has contributed for the team.”

Ishank praised Dhoni for helping them out in every way.” In the last game at one stage we were 43 for 5 at one stage. After that he played a gem of a knock with Nadeem which helped us to win the match against Chhattisgarh. We have learned a lot from watching him playing in the ground,” he added.

The lefthander Tiwary added: “We played without any pressure well aware of the fact that MS comes next.”

Jharkhand had a shaky build-up and were reduced to 65/3 inside 17 overs but poor fielding from Services let the duo build on a firm stand. Yet to open his account, Tiwary was dropped at mid-off by Shakti Malviya off Poonam Poonia, while Jaggi got a reprieve on 25.

At 107/3 midway into their innings, the match tilted heavily in favour of Services with required run rate going past six.

It was an ideal situation for the ‘finisher’ Dhoni as the crowd kept on shouting his name in anticipation but Tiwary and Jaggi did not take a step wrong and complemented each other in their solid left-right combination.

They kept rotating strikes and got an odd boundary or six in every over providing a calm assurance in the dressing room as the crowd started to become frustrated and shouted ‘Saurabh Tiwary Hai Hai’.

Tiwary however took it in a positive spirit and said: “We must understand that they’re emotional as Mahi bhai never played here.

Being a professional I did not mind. We were subjected to much more sledging on the field.”

Jharkhand have played three matches and only two teams will qualify from each group. On being asked about what will be their next plan of action Tiwary added,” We just want to play good cricket here and If the team plays well there is a possibility of winning most of the matches.”

About his partnership with Ishank the Jharkhand middle-order batsman said,” When we lost three wickets with just 65 runs on board our aim was to bat til 35th over of the game. Both of us knew that if we bat 20 overs together we would be in a better position and it helped us as we reached the score of 220 in 40 overs.”

Having slowly built their innings, the duo took charge of the show and Jaggi completed his sixth List A century in 82 balls with a boundary in the 42nd over, while Tiwary followed suit reaching his second List A hundred in 100 balls.

Having trolled by the crowd in his exquisite knock, Tiwary later acknowledged his hundred to the crowd gesturing that ‘keep shouting’.

But Dhoni returned on the field during the customary handshake after the win and walked midway on to the boundary rope near the spectators and waved at them.

Thousands gathered outside the venue unable to enter, while a few hundreds managed to get in with passes, while rooftops of the residential buildings and a school surrounding the stadium wore a packed look since 9 am in a never-before atmosphere.

But the only action they could have of Dhoni was his two run-outs and a caught-behind dismissal on a flat deck of Bengal Cricket Academy in the small industrial township of Kalyani about 50 kilometres from Kolkata.

Earlier Services could not capitalise on a solid 104-run opening partnership between Gaurav Kochar (50) and Nakul Verma (48) to be restricted for 276/9.

Fresh from his 124 against Saurashtra here two days ago, Verma missed a half-century narrowly when Vikash Singh gave the first breakthrough of the day in the 20th over.

Dhoni produced a spectacular runout to dismiss Abhijit Salvi (31) before his caught behind claimed the skipper Soumya Swain’s wicket for 12 to reduce them to 158/4 in 32nd over.

Salvi played on the legside for a single but Dhoni was quick to gather the ball and hit the stumps directly at the opposite end.

But it was Shamser Yadav and Rahul Singh who added a quick 84-run for the fifth wicket from 13.2 overs to prop the lower order. But another collapse followed with Dhoni effecting a second runout to restrict the total.

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After the match before leaving for Kolkata, Mahendra Singh Dhoni conducted a team-meeting inside the dressing room at Kalyani.