Bengal win, help Delhi enter quarters

DHARAMSALA: Delhi got a fresh lease of life as they qualified for the Vijay Hazare Trophy quarterfinals after Manoj Tiwary’s unbeaten 104 helped Bengal beat Himachal Pradesh by six wickets in a Group B encounter here today. Maharashtra are the second team from the group to have qualified for the knockout stages. Delhi had finished their group league engagements with 16 points from six matches with successive defeats in their final two encounters.

Delhi are slated to face Karnataka in the first quarter-final, slated to be held in Delhi on Wednesday. Mumbai, Saurashtra, Baroda and Andhra are the other teams to have already qualified for the last eight of the meet.

There were three teams -- HP, Maharashtra and Keraka -locked on 14 points from five games. The Maharashtra versus Kerala match was a virtual prequarter-final while Himachal needed a win against Bengal to qualify.

Delhi would be grateful to Tiwary and Abhimanyu Easwaran (90) for chasing down a target of 267 with minimum fuss in 48 overs. Easwaran (10 fours, 109 balls) and Tiwary (10 fours, 2 sixes, 107 balls) added 131 runs for the third wicket to ensure a smooth passage for Ishant Sharma’s team.

In another clash at Bilaspur, Maharashtra crushed Kerala by 98 runs to make it to the last eight phase, which starts in Delhi from February 21.

Batting first, Maharashtra scored 273 in 37 overs with Naushad Sheikh smashing 76. In reply, Kerala were all out for 175 with Sanju Samson scoring 46. Pacer Shrikant Mundhe grabbed 5 for 26.