The second day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy’s quarter-final stage saw two crucial games being washed out with teams chasing the target knocked out despite them seeming on track to get the job done. In the end, the teams with most wins in the league stage advanced, which also saw defending champions Mumbai being knocked out. Punjab was the second team which was knocked out.
The rules of the tournament, of course, left Mumbai captain Shreyas Iyer and Punjab captain Mandeep Singh disappointed but they couldn’t do much about it.
After the washed-out games, BCCI is receiving backlash from all corners for not having a reserve day for knockout matches and Yuvraj Singh has also criticised the board for the same.
In his tweet, he also questioned whether BCCI gives important to the tournament as it is a domestic tournament?
“Again an unfortunate result for Punjab against TN in the Vijay Hazare tournament , again Punjab cruising and game abandoned due to bad weather, and on points we don’t go to semis ! Why don’t we have a reserve day ? Or is it domestic tournament it doesn’t really matter ? @BCCI,” he wrote on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, Harbhajan Singh had called the rule sick, which saw Punjab and Mumbai knocked out of the tournament.
Talking of the Mumbai-Chhattisgarh match, the defending champions were asked to chase 192 runs in 40 overs. Openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Aditya Tare put up 95 runs for the first wicket in 11.3 overs and were on the course of seeing Mumbai through to the semi-final but relentless rain meant that the play did not start again.
Mumbai’s players even helped the ground staff to clear the water but for rain. Since Chattisgarh – they won five matches in league stages – had an advantage of one win over Mumbai, they made it to the next round.
Punjab, whose match against Tamil Nadu started late due to weather conditions, were asked to chase down 175 in 39 overs. They were 52/2 after 12.2 overs when the rain arrived. Opener Sanvir Singh and Mandeep Singh were out in the middle and had just started to gain momentum but the play did not start after the rain arrived.
Tamil Nadu, who had won nine games on the trot in the league stage, progressed to the semi-final. Punjab had registered five wins.
In the first semi-final, Karnataka will face Chattisgarh at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. In the semi-final, Tamil Nadu, 2016/17 champions, will face Parthiv Patela and co, who had won the tournament in 2015/16, at Just Cricket Academy Ground. Both the semi-finals will be played tomorrow with the final to be played on October 25.