Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018: Raina Leads UP To Victory With Splendid Ton

Suresh Raina finally got back in form and for the first time in the season, crossed the 50 run mark, only to touch the three-figure mark as well. He played an innings of 126* and showed signs of returning in form.

After winning the toss, Uttar Pradesh had no hesitation to bat first. They lost the wicket of Samarth Singh in the very first over, which created a bit of problem for UP. Raina eased off the pressure soon with few runs. Shivam Chaudhary did not get many chances, and it was all Raina’s game. UP lost the second wicket on 55.

From there, UP hit the purple patch and Raina, along with Akshdeep Nath, shared a match-winning partnership. Both the players shared 153 runs for the third wicket in just 80 balls which saw UP crossing the 200 run-mark too.

Unlike the previous partnership, both the batsmen had their fair share of say in this. Meanwhile, Raina, the star attraction, was scoring easily. He completed his third century in T20 cricket in just 49 balls and did not throw away his wicket and batted till the end of UP’s innings.

On the other hand, Akshdeep too got stuck there at the crease and scored 80 off just 43. While Raina was looking to play it safe, Akshdeep took some chances and got success.

UP posted a huge total of 235 and asked Bengal to chase a record target of 236.

Shreevats Goswami, the man in form, had a good start along with Vivek Singh as they were getting quick runs. Even before the completion of five overs, Bengal had crossed the 50 run mark, and the openers set a great tone to chase down the total, but Bengal lost two quick wickets in the form of Vivek and Manoj Tiwary.

From there, Goswami got a new partner in the form of Sudeep Tyagi, and both of them started the chase again. Bengal were looking pretty much sure of chasing down the target, but just one over from Kuldeep Yadav changed the whole story.

In the 11th over of the second innings, Kuldeep scalped the wickets of Goswami, Pramod Chandila and Anustup Majumdar to make Bengal six down. Sudeep saw all this from other end and in the very next over of Kuldeep, he got dismissed too.

Bengal’s all hopes were over and soon, they were all out on 160, falling short by 75 runs. With this loss, Bengal now have slim chances of making it to the finals from their group.

Brief scores: Uttar Pradesh 235/3 (Suresh Raina 126*, Akshdeep Nath 80; Ashok Dinda 1-29) defeat Bengal 160/10 (Shreevats Goswami 57, Sudeep Chatterjee 36; Kuldeep Yadav 4-26) by 75 runs.

Other scores –

Brief scores: Punjab 199/4 defeat Mumbai 198/4 by three wickets.

Brief scores: Rajasthan 158/6 defeat Jharkhand 157/5 by four wickets.

Brief scores: Delhi 143/8 defeat Baroda 140/8 by two wickets.

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