Delhi win, Sundar’s dash in vain for TN
NEWDELHI:BARELY a few hours after helping India to a T20I series win over Bangladesh—he took a brilliant catch in the outfield to remove opener Liton Das— Washington Sundar was back on the field on Monday. This time he turned out for his state side Tamil Nadu against Uttar Pradesh, who had Kuldeep Yadav in their ranks, in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy tournament.
Sundar, however, failed to fire with bat or ball, scoring five and conceding 16 runs in his two overs of off-spin as UP beat Tamil Nadu by five wickets in Group B. UP made 174/5 in 19.5 overs, chasing TN’S 168/7. Yadav took 2/37, dismissing Murali Vijay who scored 51. However, the effort Sundar took, travelling to play another game within 10 hours, was widely praised. Sunday’s T20 finished late in Nagpur, but he was back on the field at 9.30 am in Thiruvananthapuram. With no direct flights, it takes at least four hours to go from Nagpur to the Kerala capital. “Washington in fact played the game for TN this morning. Good to see this new trend of players respecting domestic cricket and turning up to play for their respective state sides. Saw it with Ashwin and Mayank also in the #vijayhazaretrophy,” tweeted former India player Hemang Badani.
Delhi beat Nagaland by eight wickets in Group E at Surat. Led by left-arm spinner Pawan Negi’s 3/11, they restricted Nagaland to 75/9 and reached the target scoring 78/2 in 12.3 overs. Skipper Dhruv Shorey top-scored with 27.
Mumbai, led by Aditya Tare’s 48-ball 74 not out and opener Jay Bista’s 68, beat Madhya Pradesh by nine wickets in a Group D tie at home. MP made 159/5 and Mumbai chased it down in 15.5 overs.
Mumbai will be bolstered by India players Shreyas Iyer, allrounder Shivam Dube and pacer Shardul Thakur, who have returned to the squad for the last four league games. The trio was on India duty for the T20 series vs Bangladesh. In Group D, former India leg-spinner Amit Mishra took 2/23 as Haryana beat Assam by three wickets in Mumbai.
At Thiruvananthapuram, skipper Robin Uthappa made only 19 but Kerala made 191/7 before defeating Tripura by 14 runs in Group B. Karnataka, whose India record of 15 wins in a row came to an end with their loss to Baroda on Saturday, was back to winning ways, defeating Andhra by five wickets in Group A at Visakhapatnam. Their 19-year-old Devdutt Padikkal scored a 60-ball unbeaten 122 (13x4, 7x6) as his team overhauled the target of 185 in 18.5 overs.