File photo – Ankush Bains was one of the five Himachal Pradesh batsmen to score more than 0 © ACC
Tripura needed only two bowlers – pacers Abhijit Sarkar and Ajoy Sarkar – to sweep Himachal Pradesh away for 68 in 15 overs in their 138-run victory in Cuttack.
Abhijit was on a hat-trick twice in Himachal’s innings. He began the innings with two wickets off the first two balls and then, in the 11th over of the innings, took wickets off the second and third deliveries. The 11th over ended as a triple-wicket maiden and, with Ajoy having taken a wicket on either side of that over, resulted in a slump where Himachal lost five wickets without adding a run on the board. Abhijit ended with career-best returns of 6 for 31 in eight overs, while Ajoy took 4 for 37.
Earlier, Tripura recovered from a shaky 54 for 4 to post 206 runs after being put in to bat. Nirupam Sen Chowdhary (51 off 72 balls) was the common factor in two partnerships that helped Tripura recover. He added 41 for the fifth wicket with captain Yashpal Singh (47), followed by a sixth-wicket partnership off 55 with Gurinder Singh (33).
Four wickets from Shrikant Mundhe led Maharashtra to their fourth straight win, when they beat Tamil Nadu by 22 runs at the DRIEMS Ground in Cuttack. Chasing 271, Tamil Nadu got decent starts from the top three batsmen but Mundhe dismissed two of them by the 21st over. The middle and lower orders were led by B Indrajith’s 49 even though he was running out of partners as Nikit Dhumal and Shamshuzama Kazi struck twice each. Once Indrajith was gone for 49 in the 41st over, leaving them on 193 for 8, M Mohammed scored a quick 33 off 24 but they were bowled out with five balls to spare.
Maharashtra were steered by opener Ruturaj Gaikwad’s half-century after they opted to bat even though Vijay Zol, Ankit Bawne and Kedar Jadhav scored only 48 runs among them. Once Gaikwad fell for 82 off 76, Naushad Shaikh’s quick 68 off 66 took them past 250 before they were dismissed in 48.5 overs.
Uttar Pradesh registered their first win of the tournament by amassing 387 for 5 with the help of Akshdeep Nath‘s 143 off 117 before bowling Kerala out for 142 at the KIIT Stadium in Bhubaneswar. Once UP captain Prashant Gupta was dismissed early, Nath stitched partnerships of 142 with Shivam Chaudhary (63) and 135 with Eklavya Dwivedi (75) as he scored his maiden List A hundred. Once Nath fell after smashing 19 fours and three sixes, Sarfraz struck an unbeaten 45 off 22 and Rinku Singh chipped in with 29 off 12 to lead UP past 350.
Five Kerala batsmen scored in double digits, including their top three, but none of them could convert them into big scores as Piyush Chawla dismissed three of the top four batsmen. Shivam Chaudhury removed Sachin Baby and Sanju Samson with his offspin in consecutive overs, leaving them on 141 for 6 and the last four partnerships could only survive 14 more balls to score one run, being bowled out in 32 overs.
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo