Himmat Singh’s all-round show takes Goat XI to easy win

A score of 375 in 40 overs by a team would usually include a daddy hundred. But Goat XI, which is one of the two teams fielded by Players Cricket Academy, reached this total for the loss of seven wickets in 40 overs against Delhi Challengers (DC) only on a couple of 80s, a few 40s in the Lala Raghubir Hot Weather Cricket Tournament on Friday.

What bloated Goat XI’s score was 39 extras, including 27 wides, conceded by rusty Delhi Challengers bowlers.

The score proved enough as the Himmat Singh-led team won the match by 94 runs.

Also read: Ton, ton, ton in an innings of Raghubir Cricket

After losing three wickets early, within the first six overs, Himmat and Dhruv Singh buckled down to add 162 runs for the fifth wicket.

The 26-year-old Himmat scored 80 off 68 while Dhruv hit 86 off 68 as well. Both hammered four sixes in their innings.

“We never had any target in mind. I have always told my team that whenever we bat first, we don’t have to lose wickets in the first 15 overs. Because we have batsmen capable enough to change the game later on,” said Himmat, who was the third highest scorer of runs for Delhi in the Ranji season in 2022-23 behind Dhruv Shorey and Vaibhav Rawal.

“When we went into bat, the ball was seaming a bit. But we waited and batting first, we had the liberty that we don’t lose wickets and chase runs. Once the wicket gets better then we opened up,” added Himmat who took three top-order wickets – of Tanmay Agarwal, Shivam Sharma and Ian Dev Singh — to put his team on course to victory.

Hyderabad Ranji skipper Agarwal, with 93 off 57 deliveries, had built important partnerships with Shivam Sharma and J&K captain Ian Dev Singh and the team was cruising at 172/2 at one stage. But both Agarwal and Ian Dev’s wickets to Himmat triggered a collapse and the opposition couldn’t recover.

“While chasing a total such as this, you need to build partnerships. Unfortunately, we couldn’t build partnerships and that is why we lost way,” said Lalit Yadav, who scored 42-ball 60 later in the innings in a rearguard action but couldn’t save the team, which folded for 281 in 33.3 overs.

“Some of our bowlers had just arrived from Chandigarh, so were a bit rusty. Which is why they couldn’t control the ball and conceded wides,” added Yadav, who hit four sixes before being the eighth man dismissed. He had earlier taken two wickets for 64 runs.