Vijay Hazare Wrap: Gujarat & Karnataka Ease into Semi-Finals

Gujarat and Karnataka became the first two teams to enter the semi-finals of the 2019 Vijay Hazare Trophy on Sunday (October 20).

Gujarat made it to the final four with a win over Delhi whereas Karnataka bested Puducherry with relative ease to book their semi-final berth.

Here we take a look at the day’s action.

Panchal, Parthiv Star as Gujarat Trump Delhi

Half-centuries from Priyank Panchal (80) and skipper Parthiv Patel (76) Gujarat chased down a modest target of 225 in 37.5 overs and with 6 wickets in hand.

The 150-run opening stand between Panchal and Parthiv meant Gujarat’s remaining batsmen had precious little to do after the two departed.

There was a minor wobble as Gujarat lost Bhargav Merai (5) and Manprit Juneja (8) cheaply in the middle of the innings.

However, assured knocks from Dhruv Raval (34) and Axar Patel (13) took Gujarat home with minimal fuss.

Earlier, Delhi could only muster 223 before being bundled out after Parthiv won the toss and opted to put the opposition in to bat.

Delhi lost both openers Shikhar Dhawan (0) and Anuj Rawat (11) in 7.1 overs and were tottering at 17-2 before a 90-run stand between captain Dhruv Shorey (91) and Nitish Rana (33) revived their innings.

However, Delhi’s innings took a turn for the worse after Rana and Shorey departed. From 151-4, they slumped to 223 all out less than 12 overs.

Chintan Gaja (3-27) and Arzan Nagwaswalla (3-75) were the pick of the bowlers for Gujarat.

Karnataka Breeze Past Puducherry

Beating domestic heavyweights Karnataka was always going to be a tall ask for Plate Group toppers Puducherry and so it proved.

Asked to bat first after skipper Manish Pandey won the toss, Puducherry finished their 50 overs at 207-9, a target Karnataka chased down in 41 overs with 8 wickets in hand.

Puducherry suffered a major top-order collapse thanks to some decent bowling from Karnataka’s formidable bowling attack and were languishing at 41-6 after 15.1 overs.

Half-centuries from Sagar Trivedi (54) and Vikneshwaran Marimuthu (58) as well as a useful 40-ball 37 from Fabid Ahmed added a degree of respectability to the score.

However, any hopes they may have had of pulling off an upset were dashed by Karnataka openers KL Rahul (90) and Devdutt Padikkal (50).

The two put together a 98-run stand for the first wicket that came to an end only when Padikkal was dismissed just after bringing up his half-century.

Rahul continued to collect runs at a brisk pace and looked on course for a century but ended up falling at short by just 10 runs.

But by the time he departed, Karnataka needed only 22 runs to win. Rohan Kadam (50) and Pandey (20) ensured the job got done with minimal fuss. ​