Rain plays spoilsport as Punjab, Delhi split points

With Delhi precariously placed at 142 for 6, the Punjab team must have sniffed victory in their Vijaya Hazare Trophy encounter at Dharamshala. However, just when victory seemed within their grasp, the heavens opened up and the match was washed away with both the teams sharing two points each. While Delhi took their tally to six, Punjab added two more points to swell their tally to seven points.

Due to bad weather conditions, the match began late in the morning at 10 am. Punjab won the toss and keeping the overcast conditions in mind, skipper Taruwar Kohli invited the Delhi team to bat first. The Punjab bowlers made full use of the conditions as they removed opener Unmukt Chand who was caught behind by wicketkeeper Chandan Madan off the bowling of Siddharth Kaul for nine. Vaibhav Rawal and Dhruv Shorey tried to resurrect the innings and they took the score to 25 when Rawal was caught by Mandeep Singh off the bowling of Sandeep Sharma for two. Shorey was then joined by Mithun Manhas and the duo added some crucial runs when Manhas was dismissed by Jaskaran Singh. Mandeep Singh took a superb catch to leave the Delhi team reeling at 48 fo 3.

Then Milind Kumar and Shorey put on 77 runs for the fourth wicket but their partnership was broken by Yuvraj Singh who had Kumar caught by Mandeep. Rajat Bhatia was then snapped by leg spinner Rahul Sharma for one and Sharma bowled a beauty to dismiss Punit Hari (1) to reduce Delhi to 128 for 5 in 27.2 overs. Delhi were precariously placed at 142 for 6 in 31 overs when rain played spoilsport and the umpires had no other option but to call off the play. Shorey was unbeaten on 58 runs and he emerged as the main stay of the Delhi batting in the match. Rahul Sharma bagged two wickets for Punjab while Sandeep, Siddharth, jaskaran and Yuvraj shared the spoils.

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