Assam vs Himachal Pradesh, Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023-24, Today Match Prediction 29 November 2023

assam vs hp Match Prediction & Analysis

Assam, the quarter-finalists of last year, found their first win of the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023 in their second game. Sibsankar Roy must be happy with his team’s quick comeback after a defeat against Gujarat in the opening game.

Himachal Pradesh, on the other hand, lost to UP in their last match after a successful start to the season. Now they will be back to the same venue where they won their opening game against Andhra.

Assam need to address their batting issues especially the way they won their last match. They lost 5 wickets on the way to a small target while they played without their star batter Riyan Parag. 

TEAMS PREVIEW

Assam Preview

It was Akash Sengupta with a fifer against Andhra who set the match up for Assam. Though they were exceptional in restricting Andhra to 112 all-out, they would have surely expected a better performance with the bat in the run chase.

Assam dropped Riyan Parag from the XI who was the skipper in the opening game and Sumit Ghadigaonkar came in at number 4. Ghadigaonkar who missed his fifty by a run in their previous match was out for 3 runs against Andhra.

Rishav Das at number 3 played a slow and unbeaten innings of 30 off 64 balls to see Assam home. Sibsankar Roy was also crucial at number 6. 

There seems to be enough power in the middle and lower middle order but the conditions won’t be very batting-friendly at this venue and Assam need to brace themselves for another challenge.

Assam Predicted Playing XI:

Denish Das, Sumit Ghadigaonkar (wk), Rishav Das, Swarupam Purkayastha, Sibsankar Roy (c), Saahil Jain, Pallavkumar Das, Mukhtar Hussain, Akash Sengupta, Sunil Lachit, Abir Chakraborty

Himachal Pradesh Preview

Himachal Pradesh have been good with the bat even though they lost their last match against Uttar Pradesh. After a successful run chase in their opening match where two middle-order batters scored a fifty each, Himachal went on to score 276 runs batting first against UP.

The middle-order made some crucial contributions this time as well. However, the disappointing part would be the failure of those batters to convert their good starts since there was no one who played a big knock for Himachal Pradesh.

Amit Kumar, Akash Vasisht, and Nikhil Gangta are the key middle-order batters who look in good touch and will be ones to watch out for. They’ve also got Rishi Dhawan lower down the order who’s got the ability to hit the long ball and add crucial runs at the death.

One thing they desperately need at the moment is to turn things around with their bowling. Vaibhav Arora, Rishi Dhawan, and Arpit Guleria are some of the key wicket-takers in a variety of bowlers in this lineup.

Himachal Pradesh Predicted Playing XI:

Ekant Sen, Prashant Chopra (wk), Amit Kumar, Nikhil Gangta (c), Akash Vasisht, Arpit Guleria, Sumeet Verma, Mayank Dagar, Rishi Dhawan, Kanwar Abhinay Singh, Vaibhav Arora

PITCH AND WEATHER CONDITIONS

Weather Conditions

The pitch is bowling friendly making things a lot more difficult for the batters. Bowlers need to ensure that the team batting first doesn’t get away with a good score, else, bowling first would not give any advantage. The weather will be partly cloudy with a high of 26 degrees Celsius in Chandigarh on the match day.

Venue Details

Government Model Senior Secondary School will be the venue for this match between Assam and Himachal Pradesh. It is a low-scoring venue where teams batting first seem to find it difficult to even reach the 200-run mark. As such, if the team batting first can find its way to 250+ they would get far ahead in the contest.

Toss: To Bowl

This venue hasn’t been very batting-friendly especially for teams batting first. Even chasing a small target has been quite challenging and hence, both Assam and Himachal Pradesh will likely prefer bowling first if they win the toss.