Gutsy Assam secure a point
New Delhi, Oct. 9: Delhi on Monday missed a golden opportunity to register an outright win as Assam managed to sneak home with a point defending a target of 79 in 14 overs during final hour of play. What looked like a cakewalk in the first hour ended in disappointment for the home team as they managed only 49 runs in eight overs under fading light when umpires were forced to call off the day’s proceedings.
Adequate gamesmanship from Assam also helped them earn a psychological point from their opening Group A encounter. Unmukt Chand (25) failed to pierce the off-side field in fading light while Anuj Rawat’s inexperience showed. T20 specialist Nitish Rana (4) also failed going for a slog.
Assam captain Gokul Sharma spread the field with deep third man, deep point, deep midwicket and deep fine leg to stop the boundaries. Then at one point there were eight fielders at boundary giving batsmen chance to run two.
Meanwhile, Bengal bowlers failed to bag more than seven wickets as Services batted out 77 overs on the final day to secure a point from their Group D encounter.
Chasing an improbable GROUP A: At Delhi: Assam 258 & 255 (Roy 87, Wasiqur 63, Tarjinder 28, Manan 3/58) drew with Delhi 435 & 49/2 (Chand 25). Points: Delhi 3, Assam 1.
GROUP B: At Jaipur: Rajasthan 330 & 246/4 in 68 overs (Lomror 65, Gautam 29, Yagnik 28) drew with J & K 436/8 decl. (Bandy 102, Rasool 97, ID Singh 79, Khajuria 53, Pranav 51, AP Singh 32, Ul-Haq 3/43). Points: J & K 3, Rajasthan 1.
GROUP C: At Indore: Madhya Pradesh 551/8 decl. & 73/2 (Harpreet 44) in 16 overs bt Baroda 302 & 318 f/o (Yusuf Pathan 136, Sheth 109, Pandey 5/40, Hirwani 3/77). Points: MP 6, Baroda 0. At Chennai: Tamil Nadu 176 & 350/6 decl. (Aparajith 108, Mukund 95, Vijay 55, Prithvi Raj 3/61) drew with 309 & Andhra 198/7 in 41.4 overs (Bharat 64, Bhui 40, Prasanth 33, Sumanth 25, Vignesh 3/34). Points: Andhra 3, TN 1.
GROUP D: At Delhi: Bengal 552/9 decl. & 161/5 decl. (Raman 40, Easwaran 39, Parthania 3/71) drew with 359 & 212/7 in 77 overs (Hathwala 64, Navneet 49, Ravi Chauhan 27). Points: Bengal 3, Services 1. At Dharamsala: Himachal Pradesh 729/8 decl. & 145/6 in 40 overs (Dogra 45*, Dhawan 25) drew with Punjab 601 (Abhishek Gupta 202, Abhishek Sharma 94, Pargat 64, Jiwanjot 59, Anmolpreet 50, Sidhana 31, Gurkeerat 29, Gurvinder 6/162). Points: HP 3, Punjab 1. At Porvorim: Chhattisgarh 458 drew with Goa 277 (Amonkar 79, Kamat 47, Bandekar 27, Pinto 25, Ruikar 5/72) & 170/7 in 67 overs (Amonkar 53, Bandekar 25, Ruikar 5/29) f/0. Points: Chhattisgarh 3, Goa 1.
target of 355 runs from minimum 77 overs, Services managed to hang on, ending at 212/7 after Bengal batted an hour on the final day to declare on 161/5 in 22 overs.
Also, Andhra Pradesh batsmen survived someanxious moments to secure a draw against a
strong Tamil Nadu in the Group C match.
An improved batting performance in the second innings by the hosts after conceding a 133-run first innings lead saw them set Andhra a target of 218 in 39 overs for an outright win.