Hyderabad Aman’s double ton lights up Vijay Hazare Trophy

The 21-year-old Rao, who was signed by Rajasthan Royals at the IPL auction, smashed 12 fours and 13 sixes en route to his 200 not out from 109 balls

Rajkot: US-born Aman Rao underlined his prowess as a big hitter with a scintillating double century as out-of-reckoning Hyderabad thrashed Bengal by 107 runs in a Group B match to dent the latter’s quarterfinal hopes.

The 21-year-old Rao, who was signed by Rajasthan Royals at the IPL auction, smashed 12 fours and 13 sixes en route to his 200 not out from 109 balls, achieved in just his third List A appearance, to take Hyderabad to a commanding 352 for 5.

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It was the second double century of this edition of the tournament, after Odisha’s Swastik Samal had struck 212 against Saurashtra in December.

Sent in to bat, Rao tore apart a Bengal bowling attack featuring Mohammed Shami (3/70), Akash Deep (0/78) and Mukesh Kumar (0/55), scoring 120 of his runs off the trio with a display of power and class.

Rao put on 104 runs for the opening wicket with Rahul Singh (65) and later added 87 runs with skipper Tilak Varma (34). He brought up his double hundred in style, smashing a six off the final ball of the innings.

Premier pacer Mohammed Siraj then produced a sensational opening spell en route to figures of 10-0-58-4 to derail Bengal’s chase as they folded for 245 in 44.4 overs.

Siraj’s exploits left Bengal tottering at 73 for 4 and they could never recover. Shahbaz Ahmed waged a lone battle with an unbeaten 113-ball 108 before running out of partners.

The loss left Bengal on four wins from six games, placed at the third spot behind Vidarbha on NRR.

In another Group B match, Abhishek Goswami hit a fine century as Uttar Pradesh produced a sensational batting effort to storm into the quarterfinals with a 54-run win over Vidarbha.

Vishnu Solanki (132) and Priyanshu Moliya (114) hit superb hundreds as Baroda defeated Jammu and Kashmir by 76 runs. Opting to bat, Baroda posted 332 all out in 50 overs, courtesy the twin hundreds by Solanki and Moliya. They then bowled out J&K for 256 in 45.3 overs, despite fighting fifties by Dikshant Kundal (66) and Kawalpreet Singh (65). The win put Baroda in a tie with Bengal and Vidarbha at 16 points.

In other results, Manan Vohra (102) and Arjun Azad (140) slammed commanding hundreds as Chandigarh registered a seven-wicket win over Assam. Sibsankar Roy made 106 not out to guide Assam to 284 for 7 but Chandigarh overhauled the target in 47.2 overs with the opening duo of skipper Vohra and Azad forming a 244-run alliance.