The Rajasthan cricket team sailed to a comfortable nine-wicket win against Andhra Pradesh in its second Group B match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday.
Opener Ram Chouhan registered his maiden List A century while captain Mahipal Lomror recorded his highest score in the format with his third career ton to guide Rajasthan to their first win in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. Rajasthan had lost their opener to Maharashtra two days ago.
Put into bat first, Andhra posted 262/7 in their 50 overs with Yara Sandeep rescuing his side from a shaky 195/7 in the 45th over. He finished with an unbeaten 80 in just 67 balls (3x4, 5x6). Skipper and opener Srikar Bharat scored a well-paced 64 at the top while KV Sasikanth’s quickfire 39 not out (16b, 5x6) in the death helped Andhra to the competitive total.
Aniket Choudhary picked up 2/51 in his 10 overs for Rajasthan while Aman Shekhawat scalped 2/61 in his quota. Manav Suthar dried up the runs in the middle with a spell of 1/35 in 10 overs.
In response, Rajasthan lost opener Sumit Godara (8) in the fourth over but thereafter, it was no looking back for the chasing side.
Ram Chouhan scored 120 not out in 133 balls, laced with 11 fours and four sixes while Mahipal Lomror proved to be the aggressor with an unbeaten 134 in just 119 balls at a strike rate of 112.6. The skipper hit 13 fours and six sixes in his innings.
During the course of his knock, Lomror also crossed 2000 runs in List A cricket. The century was the third of his career in 57 matches.
Chouhan, who was playing only his seventh List A game, was named Player of the Match.
The Chouhan-Lomror duo put on 255 runs for the second wicket.
Rajasthan are now fifth in the Group B points table of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the premier domestic 50-over tournament in India. Maharashtra, Services, Railways, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya and Sikkim are the other seven teams in Group B.
Each team will play once against all other teams in the same group in a single round-robin format during the league phase. The top-ranked teams from each of the five groups along with the best second-placed team will directly qualify for the quarter-finals.
The other four second-placed teams meet in the preliminary quarter-finals with the winners filling the last two spots in the quarters.
Rajasthan will play Himachal Pradesh in their next Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25 Group B match on Thursday.
Rajasthan vs Andhra, Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25, brief scores: AP 262/7 in 50 overs (Yara Sandeep 80*, Aniket Choudhary 2/51) lost to RAJ 266/1 in 43.4 overs (Ram Chouhan 120*, Mahipal Lomror 134*, Satyanarayana Raju 1/42) by nine wickets.
