Thrilling wins for Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh

Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh held their nerves to register wins by the slimmest of margins on the eighth day of the inter-state Under-23 Twenty20 competition on Monday (January 21).

Opting to bat first in Jaipur, Maharashtra lost Devika Vaidya and Tejal Hasbanis early and wickets kept falling regularly after that. They were 35 for 6 before SA Lonkar and AA Gaikwad added 31 runs. Maharashtra lost their last four wickets for ten runs to be dismissed for 76 in 20 overs.

Jharkhand kept faltering, with Priyanka top scoring with 17. It boiled down to seven needed off the final over bowled by Gaikwad, but they lost two wickets including Devyani off the last ball to be restricted to 75 for 8 when a run could have tied the game.

Over in Delhi, Himachal completed a chase of 118 off the last ball of the match with a wicket in hand. Sheetal Rana’s unbeaten 33 had taken Haryana to 117 for 4. Harleen Deol’s 54-ball 57 and opening-wicket stand of 71 with SM Singh (29) put the chase on track before she became the eighth wicket to fall at the start of the 17^th over. At that point, Himachal needed 17 off 23 balls.

Prachi Chauhan got out in the final over, leaving the last-wicket pair of Sushmita Kumari and Renuka Singh to score seven off three balls. Renuka took double off the first two balls and ended the game with a boundary off Suman Hingra to complete a thrilling win.

Kerala fumbled in their chase of 77 against Punjab to be dismissed for 57. Komalpreet Kour was Punjab’s star with figures of 4 for 14. Bengal put up a comprehensive show against Tamil Nadu, while the match between Mumbai and Delhi was abandoned after just 1.5 overs.

Results

Group A

Uttar Pradesh beat Goa by seven wickets

Meghalaya beat Manipur by four wickets

Punjab beat Kerala by 19 runs

Group B

Maharashtra beat Jharkhand by one run

Rajasthan beat Assam by four wickets

Hyderabad beat Sikkim by 131 runs

Group C

Delhi v Mumbai – match abandoned

Himachal Pradesh beat Haryana by one wicket

Tripura beat Bihar by seven wickets

Group D

Gujarat beat Chhattisgarh by 22 runs

Bengal beat Tamil Nadu by 19 runs

Andhra beat Uttarakhand by 108 runs

Group E

Railways beat Madhya Pradesh by five wickets

Saurashtra beat Mizoram by 143 runs

Odisha beat Jammu & Kashmir by 86 runs

Vidarbha beat Pondicherry by ten wickets