Gambhir’s 61 helps Delhi win by 5 wkts
DHARAMSALA: India discard Gautam Gambhir led from the front with a 44-ball 61 as Delhi beat Haryana by five wickets in a North Zone leg match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament here on Thursday.
Opener and captain Gambhir scored the bulk of the Delhi runs in their chase of 115, striking 11 fours in his knock before falling with the side just nine runs away from victory.
Gambhir was the fifth and last Delhi batsman to fall as his side overhauled the target with one over to spare at the HPCA Stadium.
Nitish Rana contributed a 23-ball 21 while Pawan Negi and Pradeep Sangwan remained not out on 8 and 2 respectively.
Shikhar Dhawan made 3 while wicketkeeper-batsman Unmukt Chand was out for a duck.
Earlier, Haryana had a modest performance with the bat as they put on 114 for 7. While their batsmen got starts, no one could carry on and score a half-century.
Pradeep Sangwan was the best bowler for Delhi with 2 for 21, while the rest of the attack took at least one wicket each.
In another match, Jammu and Kashmir beat Himachal Pradesh by 18 runs. J&K scored 123 in 20 overs and restricted Himachal to 105.
On the other hand, Punjab scored 129 in 20 overs (Manpreet Gony 27; Diwesh Pathania 3/22) and beat Services 123/8 in 20 overs (Nakul Verma 57; Manpreet Gony 2/13) by 6 runs.
Mumbai rode on Abhishek Nayar’s scintillating 47-ball 76 to record a comfortable fivewicket win over Saurashtra in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Twenty20 tournament for west zone here on Wednesday.
In the other west zone match of the day, Baroda beat Gujarat by 15 runs in a highscoring game in which Deepak Hooda scored a century for the winning team.
Bengal wicketkeeperbatsman Wriddhiman Saha justified his selection to the national Test side for the oneoff game against Bangladesh, by blasting a half-ton to guide his state side to a 10-wicket win over Assam in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 cricket tournament here on Wednesday.
Chasing a modest 147 in the East zone match, Saha (74 not out) along with opener Sreevats Goswami (71 not out) comfortably took Bengal over the line with four overs to spare at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
In another East zone tie at the same venue, Jharkhand slumped to their third straight loss in the tournament when they lost to Tripura by 24 runs.
Inspired by a 38-ball 74 from opener Udiyan Bose, Tripura went on to post a total of 192 before restricting Jharkhand to 168.