New Delhi: Shubham Arora's unbeaten century and his 148-run stand with Amit Kumar (74) for the fourth wicket powered Himachal Pradesh to their first-ever Indian domestic title win, Vijay Hazare trophy 2021-22 final on Sunday at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
Himachal Pradesh won the title by defeating Tamil Nadu by 11 runs (VJD method) in the final match of 2021 Vijay Hazare Trophy as the match had to be called off early due to bad light. For the first time ever, Himachal Pradesh has won a domestic cricket title in Indian cricket.
In the title match, Tamil Nadu scored 314 runs in 50 overs, courtesy a brilliant century innings from Dinesh Karthik. In reply, Himachal scored 299 runs in 47.3 overs and then won by VJD method.
Tamil Nadu's Dinesh Karthik's century goes in vain!
Electing to bat after losing the toss, Tamil Nadu had a very poor start. In the 15th over, the defending champions had lost wickets of four of his important batters for just 40 runs. It was then when veteran batter Dinesh Karthik played an innings of 116 runs off 103 balls to push his team's total beyond 300. Karthik hit eight fours and seven sixes during his century innings.
Apart from Karthik, Indrajith played an important innings of 80 runs off 71 balls. Another TN batter who starred with the bat was in-form Shahrukh Khan as he played a stormy innings of 42 runs off 21 balls with the help of three fours and three sixes.
Shubham Arora plays a match winning innings for Himachal!
Chasing the target of 315 runs for the win, Prashant Chopra and Shubham Arora gave a great start to Himachal as the duo added 60 runs for the first wicket. Prashant Chopra was dismissed after scoring 21 runs off 26 balls. Digvijay Rangi returned to the pavilion for duck.
However, Shubham continued to play aggressive cricket and got great support from Nikhil Gangta and Amit Kumar. In the end, captain Rishi Dhawan (42 runs in just 23 balls) and Shubham returned unbeaten as Himachal Pradesh won the title by 11 runs (VJD method).