Riyan Parag’s incredible purple patch in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy continued into the knockouts as he carried Assam to the quarters with an unbeaten 50 off 31 balls. Parag’s side were tasked with chasing Bengal’s 138/8, which they did with eight wickets and 13 balls to spare. Parag’s 50 was complemented by Bishal Roy’s undefeated 45.
Before Parag got his fifty, his bowlers did a fine job of restricting Bengal to a sub-par total. There too Parag was handy, finishing with figures of 2 for 23. Akash Sengupta picked three wickets for his side as Bengal fell apart following a brisk start from openers Abhimanyu Easwaran and Abishek Porel.
Brief Scores:Bengal 138/8 in 20 overs (Karan Lal 24; Akash Sengupta 3-29, Riyan Parag 2-23) lost to Assam142/2 in 17.5 overs (Riyan Parag 50*, Bishal Roy 45*; Mukesh Kumar 1-29) by 8 wickets
Bhuvneshwar Kumar struck twice in the PowerPlay and once at the death with an incredible spell of 3 for 21, while Nitish Rana followed it up with an unbeaten 71 to carry Uttar Pradesh into the quarterfinals of the tournament. Asked to bat first in Mohali, Gujarat were dented early by Bhuvneshwar, while Mohsin Khan doubled up the effort with two wickets of his own to tie the batting side down to a measly total of 127 for 8 in 20 overs.
UP were down to 22 for 2 in the fourth over but Rana and Sameer Rizvi came together for a chase-reviving stand worth 81 runs. Rana hit seven fours and two sixes in his fiery knock that came off just 49 balls. Though Rizvi was dismissed, Rana saw the chase through in the 19th over.
Brief Scores: Gujarat127/8 in 20 overs (Saurav Chauhan 32; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3-21, Mohsin Khan 2-13) lost to Uttar Pradesh (Nitish Rana 71*; Ravi Bishnoi 2-29) by 6 wickets
