The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : HP embarrasses Delhi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 15, 2006

Sport

Sport - Cricket

HP embarrasses Delhi

Special Correspondent

Host's much-touted batting line-up comes a cropper

NEW DELHI: In a sporting gesture, Delhi coach Madan Lal walked up to the Himachal Pradesh camp and patted every youngster for a wonderful performance at the Ferozeshah Kotla here.

Delhi was vanquished by 141 runs by a team that plunged into the North Zone one-day league without any decent preparation.

Faction-fight had deprived the players of any meaningful preparation but it appeared Delhi was the team that required a crash course in cricket acumen.

This was Himachal's first ever win over Delhi in a limited overs match and it came in a telling fashion with the home team conceding a bonus point too at the end of a most irresponsible show. The win, at the end of the third round, took Himachal's tally to ten points.

In other matches, Punjab beat Jammu and Kashmir by 76 runs at the Harbaksh Singh Stadium while Haryana overcame Services by 43 runs at the Palam ground. Punjab leads the table with 13 points while Haryana is third with nine. Delhi has a disappointing three points to its credit.

Wrong note

Delhi began on a wrong note by excluding seamer Kuunal Lall in favour of off-spinner Yogesh Sachdeva, who went for 60 runs. It chose the same track that hosted Delhi's previous two matches and paid dearly as strokeplay became hazardous in the afternoon.

In a shocking streak of madness, the much-touted Delhi batting came a cropper as Shikhar Dhawan, Aakash Chopra, Puneet Bisht, Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia, Suhail Sharma and Gaurav Chhabra perished to poor shots. Without exception, the Delhi top order let the team down.

Sandeep Sharma shines

Himachal was served brilliantly by in-form Sandeep Sharma, who cracked 78 off 105 balls with 11 fours and one six with handsome contributions from Sangram Singh (58 off 68 balls with six fours and a six) and Manvinder Singh Bisla (54 off 47 balls with five fours and one six). Young Paras Dogra, who also stood for his superb fielding, chipped in with an unbeaten 28 off 33 balls to give the Himachal total a healthy look.

The scores:

HP 249 for six in 50 overs (Sandeep Sharma 78, Sangram Singh 58, Manvinder Singh Bisla 54) bt Delhi 108 in 34.1 overs (Vishal Bhatia three for 17).

Punjab 327 for three in 50 overs (Dinesh Mongia 159, Uday Kaul 105) bt J&K 251 for five (Kawaljeet Singh 106 not out, Inderjeet Singh 35 not out).

Haryana 271 for eight in 50 overs (Mahesh Sood 66, Sumeet Sharma 52, Siddharth Verma 41, Sachin Rana 30) bt Services 228 in 45.4 overs (Yashpal Singh 75, Sarabjit Singh 33, Amrender Singh 32, Amit Mishra three for 41).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail