On his second home ground, Virat Kohli, who has been in tremendous form of late, struck another century to power Delhi to a four-wicket victory over Andhra in their Group D Vijay Hazare Trophy match in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Kohli, who has played for Royal Challengers Bengaluru since the inception of the Indian Premier League, knows the Bengaluru wicket as the back of his hand. On Wednesday, he proved that by toying with the Andhra attack on way to another brilliant 131 off 101 balls. He struck 14 fours and three sixes as Delhi, replying to Andhra’s 298 for eight, made 300 for six to take full points from the game.
Delhi had a sorry start with Arpit Rana falling to Andhra skipper Nitish Kumar Reddy for a duck. In strode, Kohli and the game transformed. Andhra bowlers were made to look quite ordinary as Kohli, and opener Priyansh Arya put the attack to the sword.
Arya was the aggressive of the duo as scored 73 off 43 balls in the 113-run partnership for the second wicket. Arya fell for 74 off 44 balls with seven fours and five sixes.
Nitish Rana then joined forces with Kohli, who is known as the Chase Master, and took the game away from Andhra. Whatever little hopes Andhra had of turning the game into a contest disappeared as Kohli and Rana took charge of the proceedings. They added 160 off 123 balls with Kohli getting 93 off 73 balls and Rana contributing 66 off 50 balls.
Kohli scores 131 in Delhi’s chase
After the duo fell, Delhi lost a few quick wickets, but the damage was already done. Kohli ended up with 131 and Rana made a 55-ball 77 with nine fours and two sixes.
Earlier, Andhra made a steady start but lost both openers Srikar Bharat (13) and Ashwin Hebbar (10) with 42 on the board. Promising batters Shaik Rasheed and Ricky Bhui strung a 92-run partnership for the third wicket off 108 balls to steady the Andhra innings. Rashed fell for 31 but Ricky and Nitish Kumar carried on the show with a 72-run partnership. But the Andhra skipper (23) fell to Simarjeet Singh.
Ricky went on to score a fighting 122 off 105 balls with 11 fours and seven sixes. It was a fabulous knock under pressure. After Ricky’s wicket, Andhra failed to push the scoring and made 298 for eight.
Simarjeet Singh did the most damage for Delhi with a five for 54 haul.
SCOREBOARD
Andhra: Srikar Bharat c Saini b Singh 13, Ashwin Hebbar b Yadav 10, Shaik Rasheed c Pant b Yadav 31, Ricky Bhui b Singh 122, Nitish Kumar Reddy c Arya b Singh 23, M Hemanth Reddy c & b Yadav 27, SDNV Prasad c Yadav b Singh 28, Kalidindi Raju (not out) 17, Saurabh Kumar c Saini b Singh 0, Tripurana Vijay (not out) 1; Extras: (B1, LB5, W20) 26. Total: (For eight wickets in 50 overs) 298.
Fall of wickets: 1-32, 2-42, 3-134, 4-206, 5-231, 6-262, 7-297, 8-297.
Bowling: Ishant Sharma 7-3-28-0, Navdeep Saini 10-0-79-0, Simarjeet Singh 10-1-54-5, Prince Yadav 10-2-50-3, Harsh Tyagi 8-1-48-0, Nitish Rana 5-0-33-0.
Delhi: Priyansh Arya c sub (Sandeep) b K Raju 74, Arpit Rana c Bharat b Nitish 0, Virat Kohli c Rasheed b S Raju 131, Nitish Rana b S Raju 77, Rishabh Pant c Nitish b Hemanth 5, Ayush Badoni b Hemanth 1, Harsh Tyagi (not out) 4, Navdeep Saini (not out) 5; Extras: (W3) 3. Total: (For six wickets in 37.4 overs) 300.
Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-114, 3-274, 4-289, 5-291, 6-292.
Bowling: Nitish Reddy 5-0-49-1, Satyanarayana Raju 10-0-74-2, Tripurana Vijay 7-0-75-0, Saurabh Kumar 9-0-52-0, Kalidindi Raju 5-0-44-1, M Hemanth Reddy 1.4-0-6-2.
