Published: Mar 18, 2017, 08:00 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 18, 2017, 05:23 PM (IST)
Hello and welcome to CricketCountry’s coverage of the second semi-final of Vijay Hazare Trophy 2016-17 between Jharkhand and Bengal at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. The match, which was initially supposed to be held on Friday, was postponed to Saturday as the hotel where the Jharkhand players were staying caught fire. All players escaped unhurt, but it is believed that their cricketing gears were damaged. The BCCI immediately took note of this and postponed this match to the next day. Also, the final of the tournament will now take place on Monday, March 20 instead of March 19. The winner of this match between Jharkhand and Bengal will take on Tamil Nadu in the final of the tournament on Sunday. READ: BCCI announce new schedule for Vijay Hazare Trophy 2016-17 semi-final, final
Tamil Nadu beat Baroda in the first semi-final on Thursday to make it to the final. Bengal recorded their highest ever run-chase in the quarter-final against Maharashtra to make it to the last four. The match went down the wire, as they chased down 319. Jharkhand, on the other hand, had a much easier outing in the quarters. They beat Vidarbha by 6 wickets, with Jharkhand skipper MS Dhoni once again finishing the match with a six — like he has done many times in his career. READ: Jharkhand vs Bengal, Vijay Hazare Trophy 2016-17, 2nd semi-final: MS Dhoni, Pragyan Ojha and other key-clashes
Since relinquishing captaincy of the Indian limited-overs side, Dhoni has taken over the reins as Jharkhand captain for this tournament. With a young side at his disposal, he has done well to guide them to this stage. Jharkhand also made it to the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy this year, but could not progress any further. They will hope that they make it to the final this time around. However, Jharkhand have some senior pros such as Saurabh Tiwary, who has played very well in this tournament. He has scored 320 runs from 7 innings at 53.33. Dhoni and Ishank Jaggi, too, have been among runs.
As far as Bengal are concerned, Abhimanyu Easwaran and skipper Manoj Tiwary have been their batting mainstay with 370 and 271 runs in seven outings respectively. Sudip Chatterjee. too, has played a couple of vital innings. Kanishk Seth and Pragyan Ojha, with 10 wickets, have been Bengal’s best bowlers. They also have the experience of Ashok Dinda on their side.
Squads:
Bengal: Manoj Tiwary (c), Shreevats Goswami (wk), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Agniv Pan, Sudip Chatterjee, Anustup Majumdar, Kanishk Seth, Aamir Gani, Sayan Ghosh, Pragyan Ojha, Ashok Dinda, Mukesh Kumar, Ishan Porel, Debabrata Das, Abhishek Raman, Pankaj Shaw, Writtick Chatterjee, Pramod Chandila, Saurabh Singh, Mohammed Shami
Jharkhand: MS Dhoni (c & wk), Ishan Kishan, Virat Singh, Ishank Jaggi, Saurabh Tiwary, Kaushal Singh, Pratyush Singh, Shahbaz Nadeem, Sonu Singh, Varun Aaron, Rahul Shukla, Anukul Sudhakar Roy, Monu Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Anand Singh, Shasheem Sanjay Rathour, Vikash Singh, Kumar Deobrat
