By Admin 
Bengal defeated Army by seven wickets in the Group C match of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy here on Thursday with the help of experienced fast bowler Mohammed Shami, who was out of the Indian team, with four wickets for 13 runs.
This is Bengal’s fourth win in five matches and the team led by Abhimanyu Easwaran is on top of the points table with 16 points. With this the team has strengthened its claim to make it to the knockouts.
Easwaran, who is entering the IPL auction, apart from playing an inning of 58 runs in 37 balls, along with Abhishek Porel (56 runs in 29 balls) added 93 runs for the second wicket, due to which Bengal achieved the target of 166 runs in 15.1 overs.
Earlier, Shami, who was adjudged the best player of the match, took four wickets for 13 runs while Akashdeep took three wickets for 27 runs, due to which the Army team was reduced to 165 runs in 18.2 overs. Hrithik Chatterjee also took two wickets for 32 runs.
Hardik Pandya, who returned after injury and played a flamboyant innings against Punjab, this time impressed with the ball and took one wicket for 16 runs in four overs while his team Baroda defeated Gujarat by eight wickets in a low-scoring match.
Batting first, Gujarat team collapsed for just 73 runs in 14.1 overs. Only two players from Gujarat could reach double digits. For Baroda, former India Under-19 fast bowler Raj Limbani took three wickets for five runs.
In response, Baroda registered victory by scoring 74 runs for two wickets in just 6.4 overs. Hardik scored 10 runs in six balls. This Indian all-rounder will now leave for Cuttack on December 6 where he will join the Indian team for the five-match T20 International series against South Africa starting on December 9.
In another match of the group, Haryana defeated Himachal Pradesh by seven wickets with a half-century from Yashvardhan Dalal (76 not out) after the sharp bowling of fast bowlers Anshul Kamboj (3 wickets for 44 runs) and Anuj Thakral (3 wickets for 31 runs).
Batting first, Himachal had scored 176 runs for eight wickets, in response to which Haryana achieved the target in 18 overs. Dalal hit seven fours and four sixes in his innings.
Punjab easily defeated Puducherry by 54 runs in a one-sided match. Batting first, Punjab scored a strong score of 192 runs for five wickets with the help of 44 runs from Salil Arora and 34 runs from Abhishek Sharma.
In response, Puducherry team collapsed for 138 runs in 18.4 overs. Sidak Singh scored the highest 61 runs for Puducherry but he did not get the expected support from other batsmen. For Punjab, Abhishek took three wickets for 23 runs.
Namita