J&K senior cricket team suffered its second consecutive defeat in ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day tournament in a low scoring match against Tripura played at SSN College Ground, Chennai on Friday.
Persistent wet weather conditions lead to delayed start and yet another curtailment to 35 overs-a-side.
J&K having brought in spinner Air Aziz in place of pacer Umar Nazir, opted to bat first after winning the toss. Learning from the past mistakes, J&K openers Ahmad Banday and Shubham Khajuria got-off to a cautious start putting in the first-wicket stand of 18 runs in 7.2 overs before Khajuria got out at individual score of 12. Thereafter, J&K kept losing wickets at regular intervals. None of the 3 middle-order batsmen could reach the double figures. Even the dependable Parvez Rasool failed to make an impact and got out for 15 runs, while as Irfan continued his miserable run with bat scoring only 1 run. Failing to play the full quota of 35 overs, the whole team got out for 79 runs in 30 overs (RR 2.63).
Ahmad Banday with 24 runs was the highest scorer for J&K. For Tripura, Harmeet Singh was the pick of the bowlers taking five wickets, while as Neelambuj Vats took three. Rajib H Saha had a couple of wickets to his name.
In reply, even Tripura batsmen struggled to bat and lost opener BB Ghosh in the second over falling to pacer Mudasir with only 10 runs on the board. Defending a low total, J&K bowlers struggled hard to restrict Tripura, but opener NN Sen Chowdhary paced his innings well enough to help his team achieve the target in 30.5 overs with 4 wickets in hand.
For Tripura, opener NN Sen Chowdhary with 24 was highest scorer, while as BR Shetty scored 16 runs and pacer Harmeet Singh remained unbeaten on 11 runs. For J&K, although Parvez Rasool, Irfan Pathan, Mohammad Mudhasir and Shubham Khajuria took one wicket each, it was Amir Aziz who made a mark during the match giving away only 6 runs in his 7 overs including 2 maidens, failing to take any wicket though.
Suffering 2nd consecutive defeat, J&K is yet to collect a single point and is tottering at 9th place on the points table in Elite, Group C.
J&K team will play its next match against Haryana on Sunday.