Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018: Delhi Knock Out Services; Punjab Qualify

Delhi posted a nervy win over Services in the last league stage of North Zone League to qualify for the Super League of the tournament with four wins in their account. This loss also meant that Services lost an opportunity to qualify for the next round.

Delhi’s win gave Punjab an entry in the next stage of the T20 tournament as their fate was in the hands of Delhi.

Services won the toss and decided to field first against Delhi who were without Gautam Gambhir, Navdeep Saini, and Himmat Singh. Sarthak Ranjan, Kshitiz Sharma, and Tejas Baroka were given a chance in this game.

Delhi had a great start as Rishabh Pant started this contest where he ended the previous one. He hit two boundaries in the first over bowled by Diwesh Pathania and followed with two more in the next over. On the first delivery of the third over, he welcomed Pathania with a six.

Meanwhile, Sarthak too was playing his shots freely and was accumulating runs easily. He was finding gaps easily and was looking good for a big score.

Pant, however, was dismissed on 64 after he was caught at long-on by Rahul Singh off Arun Bamal, who gave more flight to the ball. Sarthak was dismissed on the next delivery of the game and Delhi seemed to be in a bit of trouble.

Though the middle order batsmen kept Delhi in the race to big score as they Nitish Rana, Dhruv Shorey, Lalit Yadav and Pradeep Sangwan contributed in the range of 20-30 to keep the scoreboard ticking.

Services had a shaky start when they lost the wicket of Nakul Verma in the very first over, but Ravi Chauhan kept team’s boat flowing with few great shots.

After his dismissal, it was Vikas Hathwala who along with Nakul Sharma kept Services in the race.

At last, though, they found themselves short by a margin of 22 runs as Pradeep Sangwan delivered a wicket of Nitin Tanwar – who hit two consecutive boundaries to him – to almost put an end to opposition’s hopes.

Delhi and Punjab are two teams from North Zone to make it to the Super League.

Brief scores: Delhi 225/8 (Rishabh Pant 64, Nitish Rana 30; Nitin Yadav 3-53) defeat Services (Ravi Chauhan 53, Nakul Verma 53; Kulwant Khejroliya 3-38) by runs.

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