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Manimaran Siddharth shines as Tamil Nadu wins it’s second Syed Mushtaq Ali title
SMAT 2021 Final: Tamil Nadu hold edge over Baroda
SMAT: Baroda thumps fancied Punjab in a one-sided affair; will take on TN in final
A well-oiled unit of Baroda, inspired by captain Kedar Deaodahar’s batting and active decision making in the field, beat Punjab in a one-sided affair at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera to move to the finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021. It was a surprise in the sense that Punjab had defeated big teams like Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh in their group with huge margins. Punjab couldn’t get to a start that they needed while chasing 161 as they lost two of their main batsmen Abhishek Sharma and Prabhsimran Singh, the two men that had propelled Punjab to better starts in the previous matches, were picked up cheaply by Lukman Meriwala. The rest of the players couldn’t get going either as Anmolpreet Singh and Ramandeep Singh took too many balls to settle down before getting out through forced shots. A major problem for Punjab occurred when their captain Mandeep Singh got injured while fielding and couldn’t bat at his usual number three position, putting a lot of o pressure on the less exposed and inexperienced middle order. It was exploited well by the Baroda bowlers especially spinner Bhargav Bhatt who choked the flow of runs in the middle overs forcing Gurkeerat Mann to take extra risks and thereby losing his wicket. Once he was out, all hopes of a Punjab revival died down and the team could manage only 135 runs in their 20 overs quota. Earlier in the evening, Punjab after winning the toss decided to bowl first and got a good start as Ninad Rathva and hero of the last game Vishnu Solanki was removed in the 9th over with only 58 runs on the board. The Punjab team was going strong until the players started dropping dollies as both Kedar Devdhar and Karthik Kakade were dropped very early in their innings on the bowling of Mayank Markande and Harpreet Brar respectively. Once the chances went begging, there was no coming for Punjab as Baroda raced to 160 in their 20 overs as both Devdhar and Kakade scored their fifties. With this win, Baroda have now made it to their fourth Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final in 12 editions where they will play Tamil Nadu, who beat Rajasthan earlier in the day to make it to consecutive finals and their third final in total.
SMAT 2021: Abhishek Sharma, Virat Singh score centuries, Padikkal unbeaten 99 to make it left-hander's day
It wouldn't be wrong to say that today was a left hander's day in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 as not one but four left-handers in Jharkhand's Virat Singh, Punjab's Abhishek Sharma, Karnataka's Devdutt Padikkal and Bengal's Shreevats Goswami powered their teams to victories by some memorable performances with the bat. Virat Singh, who, only at the age of 23, has toiled in first-class cricket for six years making his debut in 2014, made a brilliant 103 off 53 balls hitting 12 fours and three sixes at the Javadpur University Ground against Assam. On the back of his hundred and some quick runs by Sourabh Tiwary and Kumar Deobrat at the death, Jharkhand set an imposing target of 231 to chase for Assam. Assam team, even after some brilliant shots from the young gun Riyan Parag couldn’t quite get the chase going and managed just 187 runs from their 20 overs, losing the game by a huge margin of 51 runs. Brief Scores: Jharkhand 233-3 in 20.0 overs (Virat Singh- 103 not out, Pritam Das-2/40) beat Assam 182-7 in 20.0 (Riyan Parag- 67, Monu Kumar- 3/23) by 51 runs. Check Full Scores here In a Group A game at Alur, Karnataka, Punjab’s Abhishek Sharma hit a scintillating hundred, making 197 off 62 balls with the help of five fours and nine destructive sixes. He was supported equally well by Prabhsimran Singh who scored 63 off 39. Courtesy of these brilliant knocks, Punjab set a target of 201 for the Railways who crumbled under it like a p[ack of cards, getting bowled out for a meager 83 and losing the game quite badly by 117 runs. Brief Scores: Punjab 200-4 in 20.0 overs (Abhishek Sharma- 107, Dhrushant Soni- 2/29) beat Railways 83-10 in 17.1 overs (Pradeep Poojar-15, Harpreet Brar- 4/22) by 117 runs. Check Full Scores here In another Group A game, much-fancied and much talked about before the tournament, the Uttar Pradesh team suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Jammu Kashmir, their third in three matches. With this loss, the north Indian team is now out of contention of making it to the Knockout rounds. Suresh Raina tested another failure as he got out leg before wicket for a duck. Brief Scores: Uttar Pradesh 124-5 in 20.0 overs (Priyam Garg-35, Mujtaba Yousuf-3/14) lost to Jammu and Kashmir 126-2 in 15.0 overs (Abdul Samad- 54 not out, Mohsin Khan- 2/17) by eight wickets. Check Full Scores here Another shocker was in-store today as another much fancied and going pretty well side of Group C, Gujarat were rocked by Himachal Pradesh in the absence of their premium batsman Priyank Panchal. It was shocking in the sense that Gujarat, which prides itself on being an all-around heavy team wasn’t able to chase 142 at the Moti Bagh ground in Baroda. Brief Scores: Himachal Pradesh 141-5 in 20.0 overs (Rishi Dhawan 43, Axar Patel- 1/16) beat Gujarat 115-10 in 19.4 overs (Piyush Chawla-39, Vaibhav Arora- 3/16) by 26 runs. Check Full Scores here In the third game of Group A, Karnataka, who were beaten comprehensively in their last game by Punjab, beat Tripura today to compensate for it. Devdutt Padikkal was the star of the day as he hit an unbeaten 99. Brief Scores: Karnataka 167-5 in 20.0 overs (Devdutt Padikkal-99 not out, Rana Dutta- 2/41) beat Tripura 157-4 in 20.0 overs (Manisankar Murasingh 61 not out, Praveen Dubey-1/20) by 10 runs. Check Full Scores here Uttarakhand, one of the new inductees in the Indian domestic set up and played Plate Group games in Ranji Trophy in 2018 shocked another heavyweight Maharashtra which has in their ranks the likes of Kedar Jadhav, Rahul Tripathi, and Ruturaj Gaikwad. The team from the Himalayas beat Tripathi’s side convincingly by five wickets, with Jay Bista, the opener playing a brilliant knock of 69 of 51 balls to see his team through. Brief Scores: Maharashtra 141-4 in 20.0 overs (Kedar Jadhav- 67, Dikshanshu Negi- 1/16) lose to Uttarakhand 145-4 in 18.1 overs (Jay Bista-69, Shamshuzama Kazi- 1/15) by six wickets. Check Full Scores here In the two dull games of the day, expected winners in Tamil Nadu and Baroda downed Odisha and Chhattisgarh respectively. They earned the wins quite convincingly. While Baroda beat the Central Indian side by nine wickets, Tamil Nadu lost one extra while chasing 133 to finally win the game by eight wickets. Lukman Meriwala continued his brilliant form with the ball for Baroda as he returned with figures of 5/8 against the Harpreet Singh led Chhattisgarh. Brief Scores: Odisha 132-9 in 20.0 overs (Suryakant Pradhan-23, Murugan Ashwin- 3/16) lose to Tamil Nadu 136-2 in 15.1 overs (Narayan Jagadeesan- 61, Pappu Roy-1/32) by eight wickets. Check Full Scores here Brief Scores: Chhattisgarh 90-10 in 17.3 overs (Shashank Chandraker-20, Lukman Meriwala- 5/8) lose to Baroda 91-1 in 12.3 overs (Kedar Devdhar-44 not out, Sourabh Majumdar- 1/12) by nine wickets. Check Full Scores here In the only evening encounter of 14th January, home team Bengal downed Hyderabad by six wickets at the Eden Gardens. Shreevats Goswami was the hero with the willow scoring 69 not out off 48 deliveries and guiding his team home even as experienced blokes like Manoj Tiwary and skipper Anustup Majumdar went early. Apart from Goswami's batting, his wicket keeping was at another level altogether in this match as he took some sensational catches, one of it might make Subroto Paul or for that matter, even Gurpreet Singh stand up and clap. Brief Scores: Hyderabad 157-10 in 20.0 overs (Tilak Varma-50, Ishan Porel- 4/24) lose to Bengal 161-4 in 18.2 overs (Sreevats Goswami-69, T Ravi Teja- 2/28) by six wickets. Check Full Scores here