Jodhpur join Jaipur, Kota in playoffs, Bhilwara out

Jaipur: After reaching the Pink City, Jodhpur’s batting has taken a flight. Playing a smart and aggressive game, openers Abhijeet Tomar and Bharat Sharma propelled Jodhpur to a thumping 10-wicket win against Bhilwara in their last league game of the Rajasthan Premier League (RPL) at the SMS Stadium here on Monday. With this victory, Rahul Chahar’s outfit has qualified for the playoffs with six points and joined Jaipur and Kota in the top-four. Meanwhile, Deepak Chahar’s Bhilwara has been knocked out of the tournament.Chasing a target of 148, Abhijeet followed his previous day’s match-winning knock with another solid contribution of unbeaten 93 off 53 balls that included eight 4s and five 6s. Playing second fiddle, Bharat chipped in with 59 not out off 34 balls and hit four 4s and three 6s. Both the batters dominated from the word go, making no errors and playing a wide range of shots across the ground that ensured the team finished the game with five overs to spare.Earlier, made to bat first, Bhilwara never looked settled. After their top-order failed to respond to the seamers, their remaining batting line-up became victims of the guile of the spinners. Left-arm spinner Shubham Sharma (4-0-38-3) and leg-spinner Rahul (4-0-17-2) shared five wickets between them while seamer Abhimanyu Lamba (4-0-19-2) had two wickets to his name.Abhijeet was unable to hit the winning runs on Sunday against Sikar, but he was happy to have done it against Bhilwara and that too in style with a six over the mid-wicket. “ I am happy that today I could finish the game. The focus was on winning the match and keeping their bowlers under pressure throughout the innings. Only towards the end I had net run rate in mind because we too would like to finish in top two,” said Abhijeet during the post-match presentation.In the second game, Jaipur beat Udaipur by 12 runs and are at the top of the table with 8 points.