Tanmay, Tilak again hand Hyderabad 2nd win on trot

Surat: Hyderabad bagged their second consecutive win in the Vijay Hazare Trophy by beating Chhattisgarh by seven wickets in an Elite Group A game here on Monday. Hyderabad had started their campaign in style with a resounding 113-run victory over Tripura on Saturday.

Opting to bat first at the Pithwala Stadium, Chhattisgarh managed to set a total of 242 runs for the loss of seven wickets in the stipulated 50 overs. Mehdi Hasan and T Ravi Teja were the pick of the bowlers for Hyderabad with figures of 3/32 and 2/60 respectively.

Hyderabad in reply, chased the target in 40.4 overs with a blitzkreig century from opener Tanmay Agarwal (122 off 116 balls), a half century by his partner Tilak Verma (60 off 78 balls) and a quick-fire 49 off 36 balls by Himalay Agarwal.

In another league game of Group A, hosts Gujarat too recorded their second successive win with an eight-wicket win over Goa. Gujarat had started their campaign with a three-wicket win over Chhattisgarh.

Opting to bat at the Lalbhai Contractor Stadium, Goa were bundled out for 159 in 45.4 overs, with Gujarat's slow-left arm spinner Hardik Patel (3/34) doing the bulk of the damage.

Gujarat then chased the target in 27.4 overs with half centuries from Priyank Panchal (57 not out off) and Bhargav Merai (57 off 55 balls).

Goa were struggling at 41/2 after losing opener Aditya Kaushik (4), who was castled by pacer Arzan Nagwaswalla (2/31). The other opener Ishann Gadekar (18) also failed to convert his start and became slow-left arm bowler Hardik's first scalp.

Gujarat kept making inroads and did not allow the opposition batsmen to settle down. One-down Snehal Kauthankar (23; 3x4) too failed to make it big and was trapped in front of the wicket by Hardik, leaving his side in a spot of bother at 50/3.

They lost half their side for 78 as skipper Amit Verma (15) and Suyash Prabhudessai (3) also fell cheaply. It was a patient 36 by wicket-keeper KD Eknath off 62 balls that took his team over the 120-run mark. But pacer Nagwaswalla got his second wicket after dismissing Eknath as Goa slipped to 123/6 in the 39th over.

Darshan Misal, who came at number seven, top scored with 44, with four boundaries and that at-least helped them go past the 150-run mark, but was devoid of partners as Gujarat bowlers ran through Goa's lower order.

For Gujarat, all the bowlers played their parts to perfection. Pacer Chintan Gaja (2/31) and spinner Piyush Chawla (2/32) also grabbed two wickets each. Gujarat began the chase on a strong note, with openers Dhruv Raval (37 off 26 balls) and Panchal adding 53 for the first wicket. Then Panchal and Bhargav Merai were involved in a 92-run stand for the second wicket and took the game away from Goa.

In another league game, Baroda rode on skipper Krunal Pandya's unbeaten 127 to beat Tripura by six wickets.

Brief Scores

Group A

Goa 159 (Darshan Misal 44; KD Eknath 36; Hardik Patel 3/34, Arzan Nagwaswalla 2/31) lost to Gujarat 162/2(Priyank Panchal 57 not out, Bhargav Merai 57; Deepraj Goankar 1/26, Amulya Pandrekar 1/29) by eight wickets.

At Kholavad Gymkhana Ground: Tripura 302/7 (Udiyan Bose 56, Bishal Ghosh 50, Manishankar Murasingh 42; Ninad Rathwa 2/37, Pradeep Yadav 1/19) lost to Baroda 303/4 (Krunal Pandya 127 not out, Vishnu Solanki 97; Pratyush Singh 1/19) by six wickets.

At CK Pithawala Ground: Chhattisgarh 242/7 (Harpreet Singh Bhatia 63, Ashutosh Singh 51; Mehdi Hasan 3/32, T Ravi Teja 2/60) lost to Hyderabad 243/3 (Tanmay Agarwal 122, Tilak Verma 60; Jiwanjyot Singh 1-2, Ashutosh Singh 1/31) by seven wickets.

Group B

Tamil Nadu 176 all out in 41.3 overs (B Aparajith 40, R Sonu Yadav 37, R Sai Kishore 29, Shoaib Mohammed Khan 3/24, Stephen 3/46) lost to Andhra 181 for 3 in 29.1 overs (Ashwin Hebbar 101 not out, Ricky Bhui 52 not out) by seven wickets. Andhra: 4 points, TN: 0.

Jharkhand 217 for 9 in 50 overs (Utkarsh SIngh 51, Shahbaz Nadeem 45 not out, Siddharth Kaul 3/44) beat Punjab 215 all out in 45.5 overs (Mandeep Singh 68, Abhishek Sharma 56, Gurkeerat Mann 37, Rahul Shukla 2/34, Shahbaz Nadeem 2/36) by two runs. Jharkhand: 2 points, Punjab:0.

Madhya Pradesh 243 for 9 in 50 overs (Parth Sahani 68 not out, Aditya Shrivastava 52, Aditya Sarvate 3/39) lost to Vidarbha 246 for 6 in 48.5 overs (Ganesh Satish 47, Faiz Fazal 43, Aditya Sarvate 39 not out) by four wickets. Vidarbha: 4 points, MP: 0.

Group C

At Just Cricket Academy: Karnataka 354/3; 50 overs (Ravikumar Samarth 158 not out, Devdutt Padikkal 97, Krishnamurthy Siddharth 76) beat Bihar 87; 27.2 overs (Sakibul Gaini 37; Prasidh Krishna 4/17) by 267 runs. At M Chinnaswamy Stadium: Odisha 230; 49.3 overs (Ankit Yadav 48; T Pradeep 3/54) lost to Railways 231/2; 44.3 overs (Shivam Chaudhary 81 not out, Pratham Singh 63, Arindam Ghosh 39 not out) by eight wickets. At KSCA Ground 2, Alur: Uttar Pradesh 283; 49.4 overs (Akashdeep Nath 68, Priyam Garg 57, Abhishek Goswami 54; Sreesanth 5/65) lost to Kerala 284/7; 48.4 overs (Robin Uthappa 81, Sachin Baby 76) by three wickets.