Vijay Hazare Trophy: Rain forces Manipur and Nagaland to share spoils

By Our Sports Reporter
IMPHAL, Sep 24 : Manipur missed a perfect chance to capitalise on Nagaland in their opening Plate Group clash of  the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019-20 (One Day format) as heavy rain played a spoilsport today at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Dehradun.
Manipur which opted to field first were in favourable position as Nagaland set up a lowly target of 206 runs for 7 despite R Jonathan's century (104 not out off 150 balls) in their innings and Manipur were chasing with a good pace (5.07 runs per over) before rain stopped the play.
Nagaland had a poor start and lost its opener Oren to Th Kishan of Manipur, with only 3 runs on the board in 3.4 overs.
Manipur's RK Rex who also finished with best bowling figure of 2/36 in 10 overs removed Sedezhalie to make it 10 for 2 for Nagaland before R Jonathan manned the crease.
Nagaland completed the 50 runs mark in the 18th over after SS Mundhe and Zhimomi were taken off in quick succession and reached the 100 runs mark in 29.3 overs as R Jonathan anchored well although his partners' stays were shortlive.
Rex then bowled out Imliwati (16 runs) in the 40.2 overs as Nagaland stuttered at 142 runs for 6 and Aosashi (18 runs) fell prey to Th Kishan's fine bowling when the scoreboard read 186 runs in 48.1 overs.
Manipur too had a dismal batting start as Bonny Chingangbam was out for none in the 5th ball of the opening over and lost Prafullomani (16 runs) who fetched 39 runs in 7.2 overs along with Y Karnajit. Manipur were 44 for 2 in 8.2 overs with a required run rate of 3.91 when rain forced the two teams to share 2 points each.
Manipur will play Puducherry in the next fixture of the tournament on September 28 at Abhimanyu Cricket Academy Ground, Dehradun.