MP qualify for Wills Trophy
Jaipur: Madhya Pradesh defeated Rajasthan by eight wickets in the Central Zone Ranji one day match here yesterday to finish with an all win record and qualify for the Wills Trophy from Central Zone
OP Sharma
19-Nov-1999
Jaipur: Madhya Pradesh defeated Rajasthan by eight wickets in the
Central Zone Ranji one day match here yesterday to finish with an all
win record and qualify for the Wills Trophy from Central Zone.
MP captain Rajesh Chauhan won the toss and elected to field first on a
perfect batting wicket. Rajasthan openers Anshu Jain and Nikhil Dora
added 46 runs before the latter was caught behind off Mohd Arif for
18. Rahul Kanwat then played a cameo innings of 33 off 38 balls before
he was bowled by Manish Majithia, in trying to late cut an
armer. Rahul and Jain added 54 runs for the second wicket. Saket
Bhatia, who till last season played for Railways, scored an unbeaten
79 in his first outing for Rajasthan. He and Jain added 79 runs for
the third wicket before Jain was run out as a result of some fine
fielding by Amay Khurasia. Jain made 72 runs off 128 balls with three
boundary hits. In the slog overs Bhatia and Sanjeev added 73 runs
before Sanjeev was out for 27 off the last ball of the innings sent
down by Rajesh Chauhan. Bhatia remained unbeaten with 79 from 72 balls
with four hits to the ropes. Railways finished with 252 for four in 50
overs.
MP started confidently with openers JP Yadav and Rajagopalan puting on
48 runs. Rajagopalan was out for 16, caught at short mid wicket by
S.Bhatia off P.Krishna. Yadav and Amay Khurasia added 107 runs for the
second wicket off 21.5 overs before the former was bowled by P.Krishna
for a well compiled 74 off 109 balls with six boundaries. Khurasia who
was going great guns completed his half century in the company of
Abbas Ali who also played some fine strokes to complete his half
century to steer MP to victory. Khurasia's unbeaten 78 was compiled
off 101 balls with the help of four boundaries and a six while Abbas
Ali's 58 not out was hit off just 51 balls with the aid of six fours
and a six. Their unbroken third wicket partnership realised 99 runs
from 16.1 overs.