Vijay Hazare Trophy Rex's unbeaten ton, Bishorjit's four-for in vain as Manipur go down by 6 wickets to Haryana

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jan 5 : RK Rex scored an unbeaten ton before Bishorjit tried to contain Haryana batters with a four wicket haul in Manipur's 6 wicket loss today in the 7th round Group A match of the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy at K L Saini Stadium, Jaipur.
Thanks to RK Rex and Sultan Karim heroics, toss winners Manipur amassed 210 runs for 9 wickets but Haryana cruised to the target in 34.2 overs despite Bishorjit Konthoujam's leading performance and forced Manipur to cap the List-A tournament winless.
Manipur had a stuttering start to their innings after winning the toss and opting to bat first and slumped to 35/5 in 15.5 overs before RK Rex and Sultan Karim forged a memorable 6th wicket partnership of 117 runs off 137 balls to take Manipur past the 150-run mark.
After Sultan Karim's departure on 52 (off 68 balls; 6 fours), RK Rex held on to anchor with an unbeaten 101 and gave Manipur a total of 210 runs. Sumit Kumar was the pick of the Haryana bowlers today finishing with a figure of 3/22 in 10 overs that included 3 maidens while Amit Rana picked two wickets (2/33 in 10 overs), and Ahshul Kamboj (1/40) and Aditya Kumar (1/55) claimed a wicket apiece.
In reply, Haryana lost Yuvraj Yogender on a 2-ball duck in the second over as he holed out to Thokchom Kishan of the Bishorjit's bowling but Himanshu Rana (65) and Ankit Kumar (63) made the chase look easy hitting half centuries to gather 112-runs together for the second wicket.
Bishorjit went on to remove both the half-centurians within 23.3 overs before bowling out Dheeru on 11 to complete his four wicket haul in the last delivery of the 28th over. Manipur however failed to break the 5th wicket partnership between Nishant Sindhu 37 not out and India international Rahul Tewatia 32 not out and the duo eventually took the team to 214/4 in 34.2 overs.
Despite the loss, RK Rex, who smashed his maiden List-A tournament century, was adjudged player of the match.