Rishabh Pant smashed a century against Himachal. (Express Archive)
It was yet another exciting day in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with Delhi’s Rishabh Pant once again stealing the show. Just two days after the left-handed batsman smashed 51 runs in 33 balls to help his side in attaining a 8-wicket victory against J&K, Pant on Sunday hammered a 32-ball century against Himachal to take his side to a 10-wicket win. It is the 3rd century of the tournament so far, the other two being scored by Karnataka’s Karun Nair and Baroda’s Kedar Devdhar. Apart from Pant, there were some other individual performances in the day that caught the attention.
Rishabh Pant stuns Himachal: It was a one-man show at Feroz Shah Kotla as Delhi’s Rishabh Pant went on to hammer the fastest T20 century ever scored by an Indian batsman. After Delhi captain Pradeep Sangwan chose to bowl first, Himachal set a tricky target of 145 for Delhi to chase down. Opening the innings with an experienced Gautam Gambhir, Pant made it a one man show as he hammered the bowlers over the ropes. While it took him 18 balls to complete his half century, he went on to hammer another 50 in next 14 deliveries to complete a historic century. In his innings of 116*, Pant smashed 8 fours and 12 sixes and scored at a strike rate of 305.26. Gambhir ensured the side do not lose any wicket from the other end and played safe cricket, letting his partner do the scoring. He scored 30* runs in 33 balls as Delhi chased down the target in just 11.4 overs to clinch a 10-wicket victory.
Mayank Agarwal’s 86 seal Karnataka’s win: Karnataka’s opening batsman Mayank Agarwal, who had a tremendous Ranji season, displayed his form in the shortest format too as he scored 86 runs in just 58 balls with the help of 9 fours and 3 sixes at a strike rate of 148.28 to take his side to a huge total of 181. A cameo from Gowtham K late down the innings, who scored 21 runs in 12 balls, also helped the side in ending their innings on a high. Chasing 182, Kerala’s opening batsman Sanju Samson gave a good fight as he scored a fluent 71 runs off only 41 balls and Vishnu Vinod also scored 46 runs in 26 balls. The rest of the team, however, failed to deliver with the bat and Kerala were bowled out 161 runs in 19.2 overs.
Yuvraj Singh fails to shine again: Riding high on a victory against Haryana, J&K again stunned Punjab as they attained their second win in a row by 23 runs. Jatin Wadhwan, who smashed a fifty on Saturday, started strongly again with Bandeep Singh for J&K as the duo added 63 runs for the first wicket. Wicketkeeper-batsman Ian Chauhan’s 43 runs in 22 balls at a strike rate of 195.45 helped the side reach a total of 164 runs. In reply, Manan Vohra went on to score a half century while Gurkeerat Mann smashed 34 runs in 18 balls to give the side a good start. Yuvraj Singh’s disappointing run continued as he again got out in single digits, 4 in 8 balls. The lower and middle-order collapsed after Yuvraj’s fall and Punjab were bowled out for 141 runs.
Other results:
Jharkhand beat Assam by 8 Wickets
Andhra beat Goa by 18 Runs
Madhya Pradesh beat Chhattisgarh by 5 Wickets
Bengal beat Tripura by 9 Wickets
Tamil Nadu beat Hyderabad by 16 Runs