On a sleepy Sunday afternoon a sparse crowd at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium broke into applause and loud cheers and whistles as Mahendra Singh Dhoni stepped onto the field donning a much darker shade of blue, the Jharkhand jersey. Much to the delight of MSD’s supporters Jharkhand emerged victorious, defeating Kerala by five wickets, to notch up their second win from three matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Having restricted Kerala to 236/8, Jharkhand eased to 240/5 with three overs to spare.
The Indian skipper failed to fire with the willow as he fell for just 18 off 31. But the 36 minutes that Dhoni was in the middle, the crowd cheered every run as he built a partnership with Saurabh Tiwary, who played a match-winning knock off 87 off 94 balls studded with seven fours and one six.
Much to the disappointment of the crowd, many of whom dispersed as the skipper fell, the 34-year-old Dhoni was caught and bowled by Fabid Farook Ahmed.
Despite the man-of-the-moment gone, Tiwary stole the show. Giving him ample support on the other hand was Kaushal Singh, who just fell short of his half century scoring 48 off just 43 balls. The duo stitched a 75-run (64b) winning partnership for the fifth wicket. Kerala were unable to get back into the game despite Kaushal’s wicket as Ankit Dabbas scored a quick 18 off just 15, finishing off the match with a boundary.
Earlier, put into bat, Kerala skipper Sachin Baby and Jagadeesh VA put on a solid show to steer their to a decent total. Overcoming the early blow of losing opener Mohammad Azharudeen for a duck Kerala slowly built a steady innings with Jagadeesh and Sanju Samson putting up 57 in 11.6 overs for the second wicket.
The duo looked settled in the middle before Samson was caught by Ishank Jaggi off Rahul Shukla. Baby then rebuilt the innings with a patient 61 off 96.
The left-handed batsman made full use of the lifeline granted to him by Jaggi, who dropped him at first-slip on 16 adding 77 for the fourth wicket before Ankit Dabas dismissed them both. Down the order Prashanth Padmanabhan made a breezy, unbeaten 34 but Tiwary ensured that Jharkhand would troop home winners.
