Lucknow’s Nigam bowls well as UP beat Odisha by 7 wickets
LUCKNOW: Skipper Vipraj Nigam led from the front, bowled a fine spell to help former champions Uttar Pradesh notch up a fascinating seven-wicket win against Odisha to keep their hopes alive for a berth in the knockout of the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy at Pune on Thursday.
Lucknow’s Nigam sent down 31 overs and took 4/120 as Uttar Pradesh managed to get Odisha out for 392 in their second innings on the last day of their four-day Elite Group A encounter on Thursday. Needing 90 to win then in the second innings, Uttar Pradesh romped home in 25.2 overs, losing three wickets and collected six points from the win.
Now, Uttar Pradesh share the points table with Punjab and Vidarbha with all three teams having eight points from four matches each, and to make it to the knockout rounds, Uttar Pradesh need to score a win against Assam but with a big margin in their last league match, starting Monday, at the DY Patil Stadium at Pune.
Uttar Pradesh scored 485 runs in their first innings, and then skittled out Odisha for 162 in their first innings.
But Odisha batted strongly in the second innings and scored 392 in their before UP achieving the required 70 runs on Thursday for the loss of three wickets.
Resuming at the overnight score of 295/6 on Thursday, Odisha’s last four wickets could add 97 more runs to their overnight total.
Skipper Shresth Singh could add 19 runs to his overnight* total before being caught by Nigam off Swastika Chikara, whereas the other overnight batter went on adding 28 runs to his overnight total of 102 before being caught by Prashant Yadav off Nigam.
Nigam also accounted for Ashutosh Chhuria (0) caught and bowled before Naman Tiwari removing the last man Sushil K Barik (36, 27b, 6x4, 1x6) forcing him to offer an easy catch to substitute Nirdesh Baisoya.
In their second innings, UP started on a cautious note with two openers Arjun Bhardwaj (27, 69b, 6x4) and Brijendra Tripathi (20, 42b, 4x4) stitching together 35 runs for the first wicket.
Both departed in quick succession before Nigam (12, 27b, 2x4) too lost his wicket in the 24th over, Arnav Baliyan (4) and Ansh Tiwari (8) then completed the formality without being separated.
“We need to carry on this style of play in the last game too,” coach Mohd Aamir was quick to react at the end of the match. Though he praised Odisha batters for positing a good challenge to the UP bowlers in the second innings, he said that everyone in the team played his part very nicely.