Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018: Delhi, Rajasthan To Battle For Glory

Delhi win close encounter against UP –

Delhi held their nerves till the final ball of the game to qualify for the finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018. After batting first, the Pradeep Sangwan led side posted a total of 140/9 on the board.

Rishabh Pant was the standout player for the side as he played brilliant innings of 58 off 34. His innings included a total of five fours and three sixes. However, once again, he was dismissed in the form of run-out, which was the biggest highlight.

Apart from him, Milind Kumar also contributed a handy 32 runs in Delhi’s total. Other batsmen failed to do much, and Delhi posted a low total, keeping in the mind that it was an ultimate semi-final for both the teams.

UP too had a jittery start and they lost their first wicket on a score of 18 in the form of Shivam Chaudhary. Rinku Singh then took charge and propelled team’s score to 47 but once he got out, UP’s batting lineup faced a slump, and they started losing wickets.

They were eight down for 102 till 16th the over, and it looked like Delhi had pocketed the game, but Saurabh Kumar led a counter attack. He took his team close to the total, but two run outs in the last over saw UP losing the game by just three runs.

Brief score: Delhi 140/9 (Rishabh Pant 58, Milind Kumar 32; Ankit Rajpoot 2-33) defeat Uttar Pradesh 137/10 (Rinku Singh 34, Saurabh Kumar 33; Subodh Bhati 2-28) by three runs.

Punjab win but fail to make it to final –

It was a day for Punjab where they were confused whether to celebrate or not as they defeated Rajasthan in their last league stage game but still failed to make it to the next stage as they had to restrict Rajasthan on 106 or less to qualify for the next round, but they failed to do so.

After being asked to bat first, Punjab posted a total of 129 on the board. Harbhajan Singh and Sharad Lumba were the only stands out players for them with the bat who scored 32 and 31 runs respectively. On a difficult batting track, their other batsmen failed, and Punjab had a score of 106 to defend – to make it to the final.

Rajasthan, after losing two wickets on a score of 4, recovered well and did not lose any wicket till a score of 50. Punjab tried to make a comeback by taking regular wickets, but the batsmen also shared small but useful partnerships, to keep their team in the game.

Rajasthan somehow managed to cross the 106 run mark and never looked like chasing the total of 129. In the end, they fall short by five runs of the match-winning total but, still made it to the final, on the basis of better NRR than Punjab.

Delhi and Rajasthan will now face each other in the final of the Sye Mushtaq Ali Trophy tomorrow (January 26) at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Brief scores: Punjab 129/9 (Harbhajan Singh 32, Sharad Lumba 31; Khaleel Ahmed 3-31) defeat Rajasthan 124/8 (Ankit Lamba 47, Mahipal Lomror 21; Barinder Sran 3-22) by five runs.

More scores –

Brief scores – Baroda 125/5 defeat Tamil Nadu 123/7 by five wickets.