Delhi had to face defeat in the quarter finalsImage Credit source: PTI
The four teams for the semi-finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26 season have been decided. After Karnataka and Saurashtra, Punjab and Vidarbha have also made their place. While Punjab gave a crushing defeat to Madhya Pradesh, Delhi had to face defeat at the hands of Vidarbha. While Madhya Pradesh came on the field with its full strength, Delhi missed its star players. As soon as Rishabh Pant, who has been captaining the team continuously this season, was out, Delhi had to face defeat in the first match.
Vidarbha batted first in the quarter-finals played at BCCI’s Center of Excellence in Bengaluru. Its top and middle order performed brilliantly and took the team to the score of 300 runs at the loss of 9 wickets. For that, Yash Rathore played another excellent innings and was out after scoring 86 runs. Apart from them, opener Atharva Taide also scored 62 runs, while Dhruv Shorey scored 49 runs. For Delhi, Ishant Sharma, Nitish Rana, Navdeep Saini and Prince Yadav got 2 wickets each.
Rishabh Pant was captaining Delhi in this tournament and under his leadership the team performed consistently well and secured a place in the quarter-finals after 4 years. But due to selection in Team India and then being out due to injury, he was not available for this match. At the same time, team vice-captain Ayush Badoni also got a call from Team India, due to which he too could not play in this match. The effect of all this was visible on Delhi’s batting.
Priyansh Arya and Vaibhav Kandpal made a partnership of 58 runs for Delhi. But as soon as Priyansh was out, Delhi’s innings started faltering. The team lost 4 wickets only for 80 runs. After this, a partnership seemed to be forming between Mayank Gusain and Anuj Rawat but Vidarbha captain Harsh Dubey broke it. In this way, half the team had returned to the pavilion till 123 runs and in this also Vidarbha captain Harsh Dubey had taken 3 wickets with his spin. In the next 100 runs, the remaining 5 wickets of Delhi also fell and the entire team collapsed for only 224 runs in 45.1 overs. Vidarbha won the match by 76 runs.