Delhi delivers KO punch

U-25 team's season back on track after making it to knockout phase with three points from Maharashtra match.

Despite a rough initiation to the season — which began with the team giving up points against Tamil Nadu, Delhi's U-25 team has managed to get it's campaign back on track. Outright wins against Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir followed. And while an outright win wasn't possible in their most recent match against Maharashtra which concluded on Tuesday, the crucial first innings lead had already been taken. The three points gained meant that Delhi has made it to the the knock-outs scheduled to start next month. With consistent performances by players such as Vaibhav Rawal, Varun Sood, Dhruv Shorey, and Sunny Sehrawat, Delhi is in with a great chance to go one better than last year when they fell to Punjab in the finals.

With the squad shaping up well as a testing pool for the senior team, the players will be equally glad that they will get a few more matches to showcase their talent. After the first two matches, six players — Mohit Sharma, Milind Kumar, Manan Sharma, Jagrit Anand, Vaibhav Rawal and Dhruv Shorey were inducted into the Ranji team after their credible performances with the bat and ball.

And while the fact that his side regularly loses players to the first class team makes filling in the blanks a tricky matter, coach Amit Bhandari is a happy man. "I feel goodwhen performers from our squad get a chance to represent Delhi in the first-class cricket.But the biggest advantage with this side is that there is a lot of scope for grooming players and I can assure that all these players have a long future in Delhi cricket. The same team was picked as last year's with an aim to make these players play together for five years so that they gell well," says Bhandari who has been assigned the role since last year.

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