Vijay Hazare: Aditya Tare, bowlers lead Mumbai to title victory over Delhi

Aditya Tare struck a fluent half-century as Mumbai came back from a possible defeat to defeat Delhi and clinch their third Vijay Hazare Trophy at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday.

Tare scored an 89-ball 71 with 13 boundaries and a six and in the company of Siddesh Lad (48) stitched a vital 105-run stand to help Mumbai secure the victory with 15 overs to spare.

Mumbai’s last title win came in the 2006-07 season when they beat Rajasthan to win the country’s premier domestic ODI championship.

Powered by a formidable batting order and an equally strong bowling line-up, Mumbai looked set for a comfortable final victory after their bowlers bundled Delhi for a paltry score of 177 in 45.4 overs.

Mumbai are the new Vijay Hazare Trophy Champions. A final that went back and forth with ultimately Mumbai taking top honours. Congratulations!!! #VijayHazareTrophy pic.twitter.com/HFh566JCOD

— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) October 20, 2018

But Mumbai found themselves in a crunch situation at 40/4 after eight overs with their entire top-order back in the hut. Young opener Prithvi Shaw started with a flurry of boundaries but departed in just the third ball of the innings clean bowled by Navdeep Saini. Ajinkya Rahane (10), skipper Shreyas Iyer (7) and Suryakumar Yadav (4) soon followed as the pair of Saini and Kulwant Khejroliya took three and one wicket respectively in their opening spell.

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From there Tare and Lad held fort slowly rescuing Mumbai before unleashing their shots. Both of them were also lucky to stay at the crease after a few controversial decisions went their way. Tare survived in the 19^th over after a caught appeal was ruled in his favour when TV replays showed that the ball had bounced on the ground before resting into the gloves of Delhi wicketkeeper Unmukt Chand.

Lad then had a run-out appeal ruled in his favour after the umpires failed to come to a conclusive proof to rule that the straight drive from Aditya Tare had hit the foot of Subodh Bhati before ricocheting onto the stumps.

Tare was eventually trapped by Manan Sharma in the 31^st over. Five overs later Lad followed him after scoring 48 from 68 deliveries, with Mumbai just two runs away from victory.

Shivam Dubey (12) hit the winning runs, a boundary off Lalit Yadav two balls later.

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Earlier, sent to bat first Delhi were off to a worst start losing captain Gautam Gambhir with just two runs on board. Chand (13) and Sharma (5) were the next to go, with Delhi reeling at 21/3.

Dhruv Shorey (31) and Nitish Sharma (13) then steadied the ship with a 39-run stand but couldn’t last long. Himmat Singh was once again the top scorer for Delhi with 41 runs from 65 deliveries, while Pawan Negi (21) and Subodh Bhati (25) added important runs lower-down the order to take Delhi to 177.

But Negi, Delhi’s semi-final hero, retired hurt as Shivam Dubey (29/3) and Dhawal Kulkarni (30/3) cleaned up the tail to hand Mumbai a moderate target to achieve.

Image Source: Rediff.com