Table toppers, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh, consolidated their position at the top with wins over Vidarbha and Gujarat respectively. While Shreyas Iyer top scored in Mumbai’s victory with a fluent 86 off 50 balls, Samarth Singh remained unbeaten on 65 to guide Uttar Pradesh home.
Here are the highlights
Gujarat v Uttar Pradesh: Guj 165/6 (Manpreet Juneja 54, Chirag Joshi 41, Praveen Kumar 2/32) lost to UP 167/3 (Samarth Singh 65 not out, Rush Kalaria 2/10) by 7 wickets
Uttar Pradesh notched up their second straight win after overcoming Gujarat’s challenging total of 165/6 with an over to spare. Opener Samarth Singh registered his second consecutive half-century as the in-form Gujarat bowlers had a rare off day. Samarth first added 31 runs with Suresh Raina for the second wicket and then shared two 60-plus partnerships for the third and fourth wicket as UP chased down the total with ease. RP Singh, who has been on target in the shorter formats, gave away 45 runs from his four overs. Birthday boy Rush Kalaria got the big wicket of Raina for 21 and he also removed Umang Sharma, but rest of the Gujarat bowlers struggled.
Vidarbha v Mumbai: Vid 181/4 (Jitesh Sharma 56, Sagar Trivedi 2/44) lost to Mum 182/5 (Shreyas Iyer 86, Aditya Tare 41) by 5 wickets
Chasing an imposing 182, Mumbai needed Shreyas Iyer to score big and the 21-year-old did just that. Losing their first wicket for five runs mattered little, as captain Aditya Tare and Iyer batted aggressively. Tare made a quickfire 41 off 24 balls before departing in the eight over, but Iyer remained positive as Mumbai crossed the 100-run mark in just 62 balls. Iyer added 86 runs with Siddhesh Lad for the third wicket to push Vidarbha on the back-foot. Needing just 16 runs in the last three overs, the home team were in slight trouble when they lost two quick wickets, but Shashank Singh’s unbeaten 14 runs helped Mumbai overcome the total with seven balls to spare.
