Vijay slams ton in TN’s win over J&K
CHENNAI : Going by how they’ve been doing over the last fortnight or so, the proceedings at KL Saini Ground in Jaipur were as unsurprising as they could get.Tamil Nadu romped to yet another win in this Vijay Hazare Trophy, ambling past Jammu & Kashmir with eight wickets and 12 balls to spare in their Group C clash. Murali Vijay — coming back to the side after his County obligations — was the primary architect of the win, notching up an eighth List A ton. A 166-run stand with Baba Aparajith (86 n.o) put the match out of J&K’s grasp.The victory extended their unbeaten run to five out of five, perching them firmly atop their pool with 20 points along with Gujarat (also 20 points).
J&K openers Qamran Iqbal and Jatin Wadhwan blunted out Tamil Nadu’s pacers without incident in the first powerplay after being invited to bat. It was R Sai Kishore’s left-arm orthodox that helped his team put the foot on the door. J&K were dealt a double blow in two successive overs of his, with the castling of Wadhwan and one-down Shubham Khajuria leaving their scoreboard reading 48/2 in 12.3 overs.
Though Thangarasu Natarajan and Krishnamoorthy Vignesh kept pegging away with a few wickets, Iqbal’s resilience in the middle laid the platform for a respectable score for J&K. The right-hander’s good work (67 off 87) was carried forward by fifties from Shubham Pundir (66 off 81) and Abdul Samad (50 off 43) as J&K posted 238/9.Up against a batting line-up studded with proven internationals, J&K’s bowlers needed to pull out a few rabbits from their hats, but that never happened. Tamil Nadu will next play Tripura on Sunday.Brief scores: J&K 238/9 in 50 ovs (Iqbal 67, Pundir 66, Samad 50) lost to TN 239/2 in 48 ovs (Vijay 117, Aparajith 86 n.o).