2016-17 Zonal T20, day 5 round-up: Shikhar Dhawan's heroics take Delhi to victory

Out-of-favour Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan sent out a strong message to the selectors by scoring an unbeaten 82 off just 47 balls to steer Delhi home by 6 wickets against Services. With this win, Delhi are crowned as the champions of the North Zone T20 tournament.

Chasing 132, Delhi lost the wicket of skipper Gautam Gambhir for 11 and had a mini-collapse when Pawan Negi and Unmukt Chand were dismissed in quick-time. Dhawan, who was struggling to get some runs under his belt, played his natural game and helped his side chase down the target with 39 balls to spare.

Uttar Pradesh were dismissed for just 58 while chasing 149 against Railways in the Central Zone T20 tournament. Irfan Pathan’s all-round efforts helped Baroda beat Saurashtra by 3 wickets in a thrilling encounter, but that couldn’t stop Mumbai from winning the West Zone tournament. Mumbai beat Maharashtra by 6 wickets, thanks to Aditya Tare’s unbeaten 71 and with this win, they have won all their 4 matches, ending as the West Zone Champions.

South Zone tournament is heading towards an interesting finish as three teams, Hyderabad, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are tied on 12 points and are in contention for top spot going into the final day. Hyderabad have the highest net run rate (NRR) while Tamil Nadu have the lowest.

Karnataka’s win over table-toppers Hyderabad gave them hopes of winning the tournament but the Vinay Kumar-led team need a big win against Andhra tomorrow. Tamil Nadu, who beat Andhra by 37 runs earlier today, need to post a huge victory over Kerala and hope that both Hyderabad and Karnataka lose, or make sure that their NRR is more than both the title contenders if all the three teams post a win tomorrow.

Let us take a look at what happened on day 5 of the Zonal T20 tournament.

North Zone:

Punjab 162/7 in 20 overs (Manan Vohra 60, Gurkeerat Mann 34, Pankaj Jaiswal 1/23) beat Himachal Pradesh 139/9 in 20 overs (Ankush Bains 57, Ajay Rana 21, Baltej Singh 3/33) by 23 runs.

Jammu and Kashmir 156/3 in 20 overs (Shubham Khajuria 68, Mithun Manhas 31*, CK Bishnoi 1/22) beat Haryana 152/9 in 20 overs (Rajat Paliwal 31, SG Rohilla 28, Ram Dayal 2/27) by 4 runs.

Services 131/7 in 20 overs (Amit Pachhara 56*, Vikas Tokas 3/23, Manan Sharma 2/8) lost to Delhi 134/4 in 13.3 overs (Shikhar Dhawan 82*, Nitish Rana 22, DG Pathania) by 6 wickets.

Central Zone:

Railways 148/8 in 20 overs (Mahesh Rawat 58*, ARB Singh 20, Praveen Kumar 3/18) beat Uttar Pradesh 58 in 13.3 overs (Sarfaraz Khan 18, Karn Sharma 2/14, MR Chaudhary 2/12) by 90 runs.

Rajasthan 161/6 in 20 overs (D Hada 35, Dishant Yagnik 32, Shubham Agarwal 2/35) beat 136/7 in 20 overs (Shubham Agarwal 51, A Chaudhary 3/21, Nathu Singh 1/23) by 25 runs.

South Zone:

Tamil Nadu 179/5 in 20 overs (Vijay Shankar 69, R Sathish 32*, Murali Vijay 20) beat Andhra 142/6 in 20 overs (Ricky Bhui 61, Hanuma Vihari 37, R Sathish 2/18) by 37 runs.

Karnataka 148/7 in 20 overs (Mayank Agarwal 65, Pavan Deshpande 32, Mehdi Hasan 3/16) beat Hyderabad 134/6 in 20 overs (Akshath Reddy 42, S Badrinath 37*, Sreenath Arvind 3/25) by 14 runs.

Goa 80 in 18.4 overs (Swapnil Asnodkar 23. Keenan 22, Basil Thampi 3/19, Jalaj Saxena 2/15) lost to Kerala 87/1 in 7.5 overs (Vishnu Vinod 35, Rohan Prem 24*, Rituraj Singh 1/22) by 9 wickets.

West Zone:

Saurashtra 160/4 in 20 overs (Prerak Mankad 64, Cheteshwar Pujara 44, Irfan Pathan 2/24) lost to Baroda 161/7 in 19 overs (Irfan Pathan 65*, Swapnil Singh 23, Chirag Jani 3/26) by 3 wickets.

Maharashtra 148/7 in 20 overs (Ankit Bawane 50, Nikhil Naik 39, Rohan Raje 3/21, Abhishek Nayar 3/23) lost to Mumbai 152/4 in 18.4 overs (Aditya Tare 71*, Shreyas Iyer 32) by 6 wickets.