India's under-19 World Cup winning captain Unmukt Chand cracked a brilliant 116 to help Delhi clinch the Vijay Hazare Trophy after convincingly defeating Assam by 75 runs in the final in Visakhapatnam, on Sunday.
The 19-year-old blasted eight boundaries and three sixes in his 133-ball innings and was engaged in a 97-run opening partnership with Puneet Bisht (52) as Delhi posted a mammoth 290 for nine after being put into bat.
Chasing the challenging target, Dheeraj Jadhav top-scored with 87 off 114 balls and his knock was studded with five fours and one six, but Assam could not get the momentum going and folded for 215 in 44.2 overs.
Delhi skipper Rajat Bhatia emerged as the top wicket-taker, snapping three in his seven overs, while Parvinder Awana and Varun Sood scalped two each. Sumit Narwal accounted for one wicket.
For Assam, Pritam Das and Arup Das took three and two wickets each while J Syed Mohammad, G Sharma and Tarjinder Singh contributed by taking one each at the VDCA cricket stadium.
Earlier, Chand showed why he is considered as one of the most promising upcoming batsmen as he anchored the Delhi innings and set the foundation for a huge score.
He was dismissed in the 45th over by Arup but by then, Delhi were already close to the 250-mark. Gautam Gambhir, who was dropped for the ongoing Test series against Australia, failed, scoring just five.
However, Jagrit Anand scored a 50-ball 48, consisting of four boundaries and a six. The next best score was by Milind Kumar, who stroked a 22-ball 31 -- his knock was laced with two fours and a six.
It would have taken a mammoth effort for Assam to reach the total but their chase failed to take off as they were reduced to 64 for three in 14.1 overs.
Assam batsmen got starts but with the asking rate going up all the time, they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.
Photograph: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images
