Meghalaya made an impressive start in their Plate Group encounter in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for the 2025-26 season by defeating Mizoram by 79 runs in their match held on the 24th of December in Ranchi.

This was as a result of their successful batting display that was led by two hundreds by their opening batsmen.

On being invited to bat first, Meghalaya scored a pretty decent 291/All out in 49.5 overs. The major boost during this innings was provided by the third wicket partnership between Arpit Bhatewara and Kishan Lyngdoh. They pulled the team out of a difficult start as they found themselves at 40-2 in the first 10 overs.

Chandel got a decent start, and then Arpit Bhatewara and Kishan Lyngdoh joined him. They went ahead and scored heavily. Kishan Lyngdoh marked the beginning of all these with a century in 104 balls out of a total of 106 runs. He has hit 11 fours and a six in this innings. His innings can be distinguished in terms of appropriate shot selections and acceleration at appropriate moments. He has also kept a change in strike consistently and accumulated runs whenever his opponent loosened some balls, making it tough for the opposite team to manage this innings.

Arpit Bhatewara assisted him at the other end with ample help and began his innings with a little Controlled performance before opening up. He has marked his century in 125 balls with a total of 104 runs with 11 fours and a six.Together, they added 205 runs for the third wicket in a spell of 34 overs and completely turned the game in favor of Meghalaya.

The partnership not only stemmed the flow of the innings but also allowed the lower-order to play aggressively later on in the innings. Kishan was the first one to fall to KC Cariappa’s delivery, edging a complete century, and was soon followed by Arpit, who was caught behind Karthik CA.

After the departure of both centurymen back to the dressing rooms, Meghalaya attempted to finish off the game as quickly as possible but lost wickets rapidly to leave themselves bowled out on the penultimate delivery of the innings.

For Mizoram’s bowling unit, guest player Karthik CA achieved 6 wickets for 49 runs in total, which was a great effort against the batting lineup of Meghalaya. He achieved wickets from ball number one so that the Meghalaya batsmen come under pressure to not let their team’s total reach beyond 300 even after a solid mid-session partnership.

The bowling lineup of Mizoram was aided by KC Cariappa, who took 3 wickets for 46 runs.Kosovo vs Kosovo is not a valid cricket match since Kosovo is not recognized internationally as a nation with an International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) naming convention.In reply, Mizoram began with the intention of scoring 292 with a constant run rate in the early overs.

The opening partnership established a decent opening partnership; however, the absence of large partnerships affected the team of Mizoram. There were frequent wicket breaks, which denied a rhythm in the batting of Mizoram due to the efforts of the Meghalaya bowlers. Thankuma dominated Mizoram’s scoring with a spirited 64 off 59 balls, which showed some intent to push on no matter how low their total might have been.

Unfortunately for them, his wicket marked yet another start that led to a downturn in play and no player showed an ability to convert an adventurous start into a match-winning performance. Mizoram eventually ran out for 212 in 38.5 overs, which was a far cry from being sufficient. Akash Kumar Choudhury was impressive with the ball, performing a winning performance for Meghalaya. He picked 6 wickets for 44 runs, absolutely thrashing the lower order of Mizoram, thus resulting in a win for his team.

Also, in an exciting 39th over, he grabbed the last three wickets without giving a single run, thus completing the inning, resulting in a win, thus acquiring the Player of the Match award. His flawless performance added to a hat-trick, thus awaiting his next innings as a bowler in this tournament.

Thus, with this win, Meghalaya had an awesome beginning in the Plate Group. They will play their next match against Nagaland, scheduled on Friday. Nagaland also had a troubled begin with only losing one wicket to Manipur in their first match. The Plate Group has other competing teams, like Bihar, and Arunachal Pradesh, where Bihar had a studded entrance, thus winning Arunachal with a record win of 397 runs, as they achieved an enormous 574/6, thus reducing Arunachal to only 177 runs.

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