National U-16: Haryana boys beat Jharkhand to lift Vijay Merchant Trophy

Haryana lifted the Vijay Merchant Trophy after beating Jharkhand in the final on the basis of first innings lead, riding on lion-hearted effort from new ball bowlers Vivek Kumar and Anuj Thakral.

In the final of the National U-16 Cricket tournament at the Devineni Venkata Ramana Praneetha Ground, Haryana scored 247 in their first innings with Ahan Poddar top-scoring with 57 off 177 balls, hitting 10 boundaries.

Jharkhand's Abhishek took six wickets for 48 runs but Haryana seamers Vivek (5/59) and Anuj (5/53) bowled the opposition out for 186 in 66.1 overs.

The 61-run first innings lead proved to be decisive in the end as Haryana batted Jharkhand out of the contest, scoring a mammoth 502 for 9 in 163.1 overs before declaring.

There were five half-centuries in the second innings from number 4, 5,6, 7 and 8 batsmen. They were Piyush Dahiya (64), Nishant Sindhu (53), Parth Vats (70), Yuvraj Singh (93) and Sarvesh Rohilla (60).

Before the umpires called time, Jharkhand scored 93 for 3 in ..