India's premier T20 tournament, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy commenced on Saturday with all eyes on Indian international players like Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Shami and Harbhajan Singh. 12 matches were played on the first day of the tournament with some of the stalwarts playing well and some of them disappointing.
Punjab T20 captain, Yuvraj Singh had a disappointing outing in the match against Rajasthan as he was dismissed for just two runs. After being selected for the Indian T20I squad to tour Australia, Indian cricket fans would have been hoping that Yuvraj would start the tournament on a good note after having performed well in the recently-concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy.
After winning the toss, Rajasthan opted to bowl first and restricted Punjab to just 130 in 20 overs. Former Delhi player, Rajat Bhatia was the pick of the bowlers finishing with figures of 2/16 in four overs. Mandeep Singh top-scored for Punjab as he scored a 52-ball 76 runs that included seven fours and three sixes.
Punjab failed to capitalise on Rajasthan's collapse of 39/4 in 9.2 overs, but a responsible innings of 58 from Rajesh Bishnoi helped Rajasthan to a four-wicket victory. Yuvraj, however, performed well with the ball as he picked up two wickets in 2.4 overs and gave Punjab a glimmer of hope.
Brief Scores: Rajasthan (toss) 133/6, 19.4 overs (Bishnoi 58, Yagnik 23*; Yuvraj Singh 2/16, Dhanda 2/29) beat Punjab 130/6, 20 overs (Mandeep Singh 76*, Gurinder Singh 29; Bhatia 2/16, Kukna Ajay Singh 1/23) by four wickets.
Virender Sehwag-led Haryana succumbed to a humiliating nine-wicket defeat to Tamil Nadu, who dominated with both ball and bat. Batting first after winning the toss, Sehwag was not able to inspire his team as he got out for just three runs. Only Nitin Saini was able to get some score of respectability as he scored 50 runs at the top of the order.
Antony Dhas was the pick of the Tamil Nadu bowlers as he picked four wickets for just 10 runs in 3.1 overs. Murugan Ashwin also picked up three wickets to script Haryana's downfall. In reply, TN chased down the score in just 16 overs after a 105-run partnership for the second wicket between Srikkanth Anirudha and Baba Aparajith.
Brief Scores: Tamil Nadu 116/1, 16 overs (Anirudha 54*, Aparajith 49*) beat Haryana (toss) 113/10, 19.1 overs (Saini 50; Dhas 4/10, Murugan Ashwin 3/28) by nine wickets.
Delhi won a high-scoring encounter against Railways after 424 runs were scored at the Alembic Ground, Vadodara. Being put into bat first, Railways were powered to 210 in 20 overs by a 185-run partnership between Asad Pathan and Saurabh Wakaskar.
Useful knocks from the Delhi batting lineup helped Delhi chase down the total with four balls to spare to bring to end what was an exciting encounter. Aditya Kaushik top-scored with 53 runs while all-rounder Pawan Negi helped Delhi cross the finishing line with some late power-hitting.
Brief Scores: Delhi (toss) 214/6, 20 overs (Kaushik 53, Chand, 38, Negi, 35; Upadhyay 2/36) beat Railways 210/2, 20 overs (Wakaskar 118*, Asad Pathan 81*; Negi 1/48) by four wickets.
Mohammad Shami showed glimpses of why he is India's best limited-overs bowler as he picked up three wickets to script a 61-run victory for Bengal against Hyderabad. Indian Test wicketkeeper, Wriddhiman Saha top-scored for Bengal, who batted first, with a 47-ball 81. Saha was involved in a 138-run partnership with fellow opener Sayan Mondal.
In response, Hyderabad folder for just 124 runs Shami and Pragyan Ojha picked up three wickets apiece. Mondal put in an all-round performance as he picked up two wickets along with the fifty he scored in the first innings.
Brief Scores: Bengal (toss) 185/4, 20 overs (Saha 81, Mondal 50; Milind 2/45) beat Hyderabad 124/10, 16.2 overs (Akshath Reddy 32; Shami 3/18, Ojha 3/23, Mondal 2/35) by 61 runs.
The Irfan Pathan-led Baroda side beat Assam in a convincing manner after Irfan ran through the Assam batting lineup to pick up five wickets for just 13 runs in his four overs. Playing in his 150th T20 match, this was the first time he picked up a 5-wicket haul in the format.
After being put to bat first, Baroda reached a respectable total thanks to two scores of 48 scored by Deepak Hooda and Kedar Devdhar. Jamaluddin Syed Mohammad was the only star for Assam as he picked up two wickets and scored an unbeaten 42 after the Assam batting order collapsed.
Baroda 165/8, 20 overs (Deepak Hooda 48, Kedar Devdhar 48; Syed Mohammad 2/28) beat Assam (toss) 116/9, 20 overs (Syed Mohammad 42; Pathan 5/13) by 48 runs.
Brief scores of other matches that were held:
Services (toss) 122/7, 19 overs (Anshul Gupta 27; Cariappa 2/20) beat Karnataka 121/9, 20 overs (Vinay Kumar 38; Raushan Raj 3/19, Deepak Rai 2/21) by three wickets.
Saurashtra (toss) 144/6, 20 overs (Pujara 67; Majumder 2/22) beat Tripura 78/10, 17.3 overs (Nirupam Sen 12; Punia 3/19, Makvana 2/8) by 66 runs.
Kerala (toss) 129/5, 18.4 overs (R Prem 59*; Mudhasir 2/27) beat Jammu and Kashmir 126/6, 20 overs (Bandeep Singh 37; Gomez 2/19) by five wickets.
Madhya Pradesh (toss) 96/5, 18.2 overs (Harpreet Singh 40*; Ayyappa 2/18) beat Andhra 95/9, 20 overs (Srinivas 22; Ishwar Pandey 4/20, Venkatesh Iyer 2/10) by five wickets.
Uttar Pradesh (toss) 113/3, 11.2 overs (Prashant Gupta 35, Nath 34*; Kazi 1/18) beat Maharashtra 109/7, 12 overs (Kedar Jadhav 52*; Chawla 4/28, Rajpoot 3/15) by seven wickets.
Mumbai (toss) 95/4, 15.5 overs (Tare 32, Lad 31*; Behera 2/14) beat Odisha 91/10, 17.4 overs (Abhishek Yadav 33; Thakur 2/11, Kulkarni 2/17) by six wickets.
Himachal Pradesh (toss) 152/5, 19.3 overs (Prashant Chopra 89*, Dogra 36; Kalaria 2/21) beat Gujarat 151/6, 20 overs (Bhatt 40, Parthiv Patel 35; Akshay Chauhan 2/32) by five wickets.
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