da apostaganha： Tamil Nadu pulled off a dramatic 12-run victory over Delhi to clinch asemifinal berth in the Vijay Merchant (under-16) Trophy crickettournament at Thiruvananthapuram on Friday
07-Jan-2000Tamil Nadu pulled off a dramatic 12-run victory over Delhi to clinch asemifinal berth in the Vijay Merchant (under-16) Trophy crickettournament at Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.The odds were in favour of Delhi when play resumed on the third andfinal day. Chasing 168 for victory, Delhi were 67 without loss atstumps on Thursday. And things continued to go Delhi’s wayinitially. Openers G Malhotra (37) and skipper R Jaswal (34) went onto put on 91 runs in 35.5 overs before the latter was out. In thefollowing over and without any addition to the score, Malhotra wasdismissed. Sushil Kumar (5) fell at 98 and A Trehan (0) was out at101.K Bhardwaj and Deepak Sharma however took the score to 129 and Delhineeded only 39 runs for victory with six wickets intact. However atthis stage Deepak Sharma (6) was out. A Budania now joined Bhardwajand they took the score to 143 when Bhardwaj was run out for 24. SKhullar and Budania now came together and the 150 was raised. At 151for six, Delhi were just 17 runs away from victory.Now came the dramatic denouement. First Khullar was caught by skipperAditya Srikkanth off Malick for 2. Off the last ball of the same over,at the same score, Malick had Abhishek Sharma caught by Vijayasarathyfor a duck. Off the fifth ball of the following over, without anyaddition to the score, Rudania gave Vasudevadoss a return catch. Andfinally in his next over, after four runs had been added,Vasudevasdoss had last man Aggarwal caught by Karthik for two andDelhi were all out for 155. K Lal remained not out on one and TamilNadu had ended surprise victors. The bowling honours were shared byVasudevadoss who took two for 30 and Malik who bowled 27 overs tocapture four wickets for 33.