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In the first semi-final in Rajkot, Haryana defeated
five-time champions and a star-studded Tamil Nadu to go to their first Vijay
Hazare Trophy final. Himanshu Rana, who batted third, scored an undefeated
century to set up Haryana’s historic victory. Sumit Kumar’s brilliant finish
took the score to 293 for 7, and the bowling attack combined to dismiss Tamil
Nadu for 230 without their main spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who departed for
South Africa to play for his country.
Haryana chose to bat first and got off to a poor
start, but Yuvraj Singh and Himanshu quickly picked up the pace, putting on a
second-wicket partnership of 132. Despite Yuvraj’s 65 off 79, Haryana’s middle
order failed to capitalise, as the team lost ground from 170 for 2 to 206 for
6, with most of the batters failing to make huge shots. While this was going
on, Himanshu kept pulling and driving to stabilise the innings, and when the
No. 8 Sumit joined him, Haryana was once more lifted. Beginning with a first-ball
six, he proceeded to smash three fours and two more sixes in a game-changing
partnership of 75 off 42, ensuring that Haryana amassed 69 runs in the final
five overs, including 19 from Varun Chakravarthy and 43 from T Natarajan’s
three overs.
Himanshu brought up his century off 110 balls and
scored nearly half of his runs in boundaries, with 11 fours and two sixes that
earned him his second century of the tournament.
Before the chase even began, Tamil Nadu’s normal No. 3
Baba Indrajit suffered a facial injury during an innings break when tripping in
the lavatory, forcing him to drop to No. 5. Within the first three overs,
Haryana removed Baba Aparajith (caught down the leg side) and Hari Nishaanth,
consolidating their position even further in the game. After over 50 minutes of
digging in, Vijay Shankar was run out trying an extremely dangerous single, and
N Jagadeesan, who was well-set, quickly flung a catch to short fine leg off a
sweep. Even with Indrajith, skipper Dinesh Karthik, and Shahrukh Khan
remaining, Tamil Nadu was 76 for 4 in the twenty-first over and none of them
could take them close to the target.
Recalling that it was a “very chasable
total,” Karthik bemoaned the defeat and gave respect to his quick bowlers.
However, he felt that his batting did not truly connect when huge partnerships
were needed, an area in which he wanted his squad to develop in order to post
large totals.
Ashok Menaria, the captain of Haryana, praised his
squad for their efforts in Chahal’s absence, particularly after he acknowledged
that, at halftime, he didn’t think 293 would be sufficient.